Our Time at Beacon (JANN Series)
by Raz3rbat
Summary: After a bit of a rough start, Team JANN has finally settled into Beacon properly. Things are about to start ramping up for our group of heroes though, as new relationships are formed, enemies come from the woodwork, and a grand conspiracy is revealed. (based on volume 2)
1. Opening

**AN: Alright, first things first: if you haven't read Enter Team JANN yet, you should do so before jumping into this story, it is a sequel to that one and some elements aren't going to make a lot of sense that are explained in the other story. I'm writing this story in the position that the readers should have read the previous one. Okay, enough rambling. Enjoy.**

The cafeteria was bustling with students, places to sit were becoming few and far between. At one table near the doors, three teams sit. JANN, RWBY, and JNPR were enjoying their breakfast on the last day of the semester break, one person looked off in the group, Nathan Darkford, the boy's arms were wrapped in bandages, garnering questioning looks from passing students, and the thing everyone was currently questioning him on. "So you can't use aura, like, at all?" Jaune was the most confused, he had only learned about aura recently, and he had learned that every living thing has an aura as long as it had a soul, so seeing someone who was alive but could not use aura was baffling, Nathan replied to his inquiry simply, "I cannot, clearly. It is a sacrifice the Darkford family makes, every male child gains a stand, but because of the stand, we cannot use aura. Make sense?" Jaune was still a bit confused but understood most of it, nodding to communicate such.

Johnny was in favour of lightening up the mood, "so we just need to keep you out of trouble until you recover. Sitting in the room while we're sparring can't be much fun, so how about we go get something for lunch out in town today, just the four of us, as a team?" Nathan was grateful for the kind gesture, but was getting distracted by Yang noisily catching grapes that Nora flung at her, until Weiss stood up, "I think we could al-" *splat*, a pie hit Weiss in the face, Nora was quick to imply Ren was the one who threw it, but everyone knew she did. Nathan was quick to pick up a bowl of pudding sitting on his plate that he wasn't going to eat, and threw it back at Nora, who was too busy worrying about Ren to notice the bowl coming straight at her head. The pudding was splattered all over the side of her head, and Nathan pointed at Alice, who just looked up, confused, as Nora didn't think to question Nathan with his bandaged arms and threw her plate of food at Alice. Nathan and Johnny got up and left the cafeteria, leaving Alice and Natalie to their fate.

"You are such an asshole," Johnny joked at Nathan as they left the building, seeing four people, talking to each other. Sylvia was trying to convince another girl to be social, "Come on Regalia, you need to talk to new people, and these guys are really nice, I promise,"

Regalia clearly preferred to keep to herself, "Sylvia, I'm not interested, I don't know why you keep dragging me to these little meet-ups of yours,"

Sun was talking to a blue haired boy, "these guys are totally cool Neptune, trust me. You just need to be cool, got it?"

Neptune almost sounded like he was scolding him, "dude," he flashed his clothes off, a completely over the top uniform, he was trying way too hard, but Sun played along, "okay, you've got a point, but can you at least hold back on flirting with every girl in the room?"

"Fine, but no promises," the four walked through the door only to be caught in the largest food fight the students could cause, two teams doing most of the fighting while others ran, team RWBY and team JNPR, two other students were caught in the crossfire, but seemed to have chosen sides, Natalie was on the side of RWBY, while Alice took the side of JNPR. It was a confusing sight to see.

**Elsewhere**

The airship was tightly packed with soldiers, each sitting shoulder to shoulder in order to fit more in. A conversation could be heard between some of them, "hey, you think there's actually a threat this time? Or do you think the general's just being paranoid again?"

"I'm leaning on a little bit of both, he wouldn't call half the military out if there was no tangible threat, but half of the entire military is probably a bit overkill, you know what I mean?"

"Yeah, that sounds like him alright. Hey Rookie, what do you think of this?"

The one soldier sitting closest to the door spoke up, "first off, stop calling me Rookie, second, I don't care, give me something to shoot at and I'm happy. Besides, if you were in charge of the only standing military force in the entirety of Remnant, wouldn't you end up a little nuts by the end?"

"I guess, but it still seems like a bit much, right?"

"Would you rather be sitting on the wall surrounding Mantle right now?" Rookie was fairly annoyed by all this questioning, what he needed to do was get out on the streets and do some patrolling. It would help get the layout of the city, get to know the locals a bit better, it was usually a decent time. The pilot spoke over the radio, "landing soon, get ready to move out," Rookie was always ready for the mission. Always.

**Beacon**

Weiss was sitting in the dorm listening to music whilst everyone else looked to be excited in some sense, the only person calmer than her in the room was Blake, at least that was what it looked like. Weiss was trying not to have a breakdown at the moment, the last few weeks hadn't been hell to get through, the recent events bringing up memories that she had long preferred to forget or block out. The music she was listening to was from a band called Spirit, their music was relatable to her, with the singer shouting out "I'm not okay!" feeling like he was speaking directly about her. She was watching the video for the song, and she felt like she recognized him through the eyeliner and pale skin, but she couldn't directly tell who he was, he looked like he hadn't been eating for days at a time, she hoped he was in a better place now as the video came out a couple of years ago. She got a message on her scroll from Nathan, -are you doing okay?-

Weiss wanted to cover up her emotions for him, -I'm fine, just listening to some music while my teammates are bouncing off the walls-

Nathan was always a bit too curious for his own good, -what kind of music?-

Weiss didn't see anything wrong in responding honestly, -I've been listening to this newer band called Spirit, I don't imagine you've heard of them?-

Nathan's next response surprised her, -Can we talk? It doesn't need to be in private or anything-

Weiss just texted back, -sure, meet you in the library?

-sounds good.-

The library was always a lonelier place than most on campus, Nathan was supposed to be here, but was running a bit late. He usually had to tell his teammates about where he was going, considering Johnny was always worrying about them. It confused Weiss how much Johnny worried about his teammates, he cared about them and his sisters like they were the only things left in his life, but it wasn't her place to comment on that, and she was the last person anyone should go to for emotional support. Nathan burst into the library and slowed himself down immediately, walking over to where Weiss was sitting. Instead of saying anything, he just hugged her, seemingly for no reason, but Weiss wasn't complaining, she felt like she really needed a hug after everything she was feeling. Nathan let go after a long moment of silence between the two of them, and sat down beside Weiss, asking her, "honestly, how are you feeling?"

Weiss just sat speechless for a few seconds, then responded, "I'm… doing better now. Why did you do that?"

Nathan's face turned from caring to solemn in an instant, "I figured something was wrong when I learned about the music you were listening to. I don't want to see you spiralling down the same path I did for a while,"

"What do you mean by that? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine but… look, it's easy to explain but you have to promise me that you'll still treat me like you usually do afterwards, okay?"

"Alright, but I can't completely promise that,"

"Okay, but it's going to be a long story, and I won't hold anything against you if you want me to stop at any time,"

"Look, I'm going to be here, and I will still be here to listen to you, just tell me,"  
"Alright, short answer, I'm the lead singer of Spirit,"  
"What!? You don't look anything like him, he looks like he's just broken and had enough with everything, you're nothing like that, I couldn't see you in that sort of position,"

"I figured you would respond like that, but it doesn't change the past, time for the long answer. I was born and raised in Atlas, grew up as the second son of the Darkford family, I was always treated with love and care, but as one might expect, everything changed when I went to combat school. I was probably the only kid there without an aura, this was explained to me by my parents as soon as my stand developed. No matter what I said or how I explained it to the other students, they thought I was completely inept for combat school, I couldn't possibly be any good as a huntsman without an aura, and I hadn't properly gained control of my stand. My family also happens to be well known for something though, the constant support of faunus rights, this lead to other kids bullying me about that too. I had many names attached to me, Faunus-lover, pincushion, I had brought up the Faunus-lover name to my parents, and they told me I shouldn't be ashamed to be called something so virtuous, but it wasn't the name itself that was the problem, it was the way they said it. I continued through school, I tried to remain strong, and eventually I even met a girl who didn't care about what anyone else said about me, and we started going out. She was so sweet and kind and caring, I… I miss her so much, I… I just…" Nathan was silently sobbing, tears flowing down his face, but he resolved to continue his story, and let it all out afterwards, "We had been going out for a few months when she… I found her body, a bullet through the skull. She was the greatest person I had ever met, and then she was just gone. I kind of just stopped functioning after that, dragging myself through school, ignoring everything and everyone around me, that was around the time I wrote "I'm Not Okay", but it was more of a suicide note at the time. It was about five months of hell before someone came up to me and told me `Hey, a couple of friends and I are starting up a band, wanna join?' of course I said yes, it was a reason to keep going, I had planned to end it a few weeks later, but what was going to be my suicide note became the first song we released as a band, the video was an idea the others came up with, they were other students who were depressed in one way or another. They decided that they had enough and were going to make a name for themselves by making music about their pain instead of ending it all, for coping and likely to insight a change that people needed, one to help people like myself get the help we desperately needed, but no one offered. The first album exploded, and the video for our first song became extremely popular, I look the way I do in that video because at the time, I was dealing with an eating disorder, and I wanted to make my look of a kid who wanted nothing more than to die complete with the eyeliner, I still have the eyeliner I used for that video sitting in my room somewhere. I started feeling better about myself, I still had the lingering depressing thoughts, as depression isn't just a mood, but I found myself getting through my eating disorder and filling out my form again, I was able to move on in my life. I wrote "Welcome to the Black Parade" as a tribute to her, about how I would carry on, despite the pain I went through with her, I would try and make the world a better place in my own way because she couldn't do it anymore. I decided after the release of the second album that I would become a huntsman after completing my education in the combat school and after that I would work as a huntsman while playing as a part of the band, my view on life became far more positive as time went on, so here I am, in some of the happiest years of my life, with something to look forward to, and pain to look back on and say 'I overcame that',"

Weiss was feeling a lot of things, but one question was burning on her mind, "why didn't you say anything about it to anyone?"

"Simply put, it doesn't matter, someone like you probably has a far worse story about your childhood, considering some of the things I've heard about the Schnees, so my problems really don't matter in comparison,"  
"Just because your problems may not be as bad as mine doesn't make them any less valid, or any less worth talking about to someone, and your emotions are just as valid as mine. I'm not going to let you bottle this up anymore, if you have some kind of problem, just talk to me, or your teammates, I want to hear if you have some kind of problem. I think you worry me more than I worry you sometimes. Can you please just promise me that if you ever feel like dying, just talk to someone? I'm sure they'll listen,"  
"Okay, I promise."

**AN: And we're back in business. Nathan now has some backstory, and I finally get to introduce everyone to Rookie, I won't spoil it, but he gets some pretty significant character changes over the series from an Atlesian you couldn't already guess, Spirit is basically the MCR of Remnant, I figured someone had to come up with this kind of music there, and it wouldn't make much sense to just have MCR be in the world for no reason. Obviously I don't own any of the songs mentioned in the story. Raz3r out!**


	2. Out In Town part 1

**Dorms (5:00 p.m.)**

Life seemed to plan on throwing as many problems in Natalie's way as possible, it was really hard to find the time to deal with everything in school let alone the half-dozen other things that had been going on, she'd been on a date with Ruby when she accidentally let slip that she and her team were going to do some investigating on the case with the White Fang. She told her team and now they were standing outside Team RWBY's door to join in, Johnny found himself rather upset about the whole thing, his sisters wouldn't even tell him, Natalie wasn't much better, or Nathan, the only one with any kind of indifferent mood was Alice, she had no involvement with any of the members of RWBY though, if Pyrrha was any kind of involved in these plans, she'd be fired up to try and win one over on her sister. Johnny knocked on the door and the team stepped in, Johnny asking, "are we interrupting on your super secret plans?"

Ruby jumped back in surprise, "what are you guys doing here!?"

Natalie chimed in, a bit miffed, "wishing that the people we care about would stop keeping so many secrets, I can understand though, it could be dangerous and you want to get as few people involved as possible, but I prefer to be treated as a person who can hold their own, not a personal driver,"

Ruby shrank down, "I'm sorry, you're right, but we just don't want other people involved in our own problems as a team,"

Nathan finally spoke up, "you know we were both there right? I'm a bit tired of being a shoulder to lean on, only to be treated like I barely exist,"  
Weiss visibly deflated this time, "I know, but the White Fang don't generally involve any of you, mostly me and Blake, and Ruby would never leave us alone about it, and with Ruby comes Yang, I would prefer to keep you out of my problems,"

Alice was probably the brightest voice in the room, "well now you guys don't have to tackle it alone, and we can help make revisions to any plans you've already made, so what's the plan?"

A voice came from the window, "don't know, but what I do know, is that it now involves us," it was Sun, everyone jumped, but no one made a sound, "hey Sylvia, could you get them up here already, my tail's getting sore, and I think my legs are falling asleep,"

"Almost there, give me a couple seconds," Sylvia popped up on a white chain, with two others on chains as well, "alright so now that we've all arrived, I'll introduce you to Neptune and Regalia, say hello,"

A girl with green hair and a Mistralian combat school uniform spoke first, a blank emotionless voice, "hi, I'm Regalia, now can I be put down, preferably in the room?" the chain placed her on the floor, a blue haired boy spoke next, "Neptune, now I'd prefer not to mess up my clothes, thank you very much, put me down please," the chain tossed him into the room, he landed face first on the floor. The two teams stood in shock for a few seconds until Alice snapped them all out of it, "alright, that's all well and good, but what's the plan, I hope we aren't just winging this?"

Ruby shook her head and focused herself, "okay, here's the original plan, Blake was going to the White Fang recruitment event to try and get some information from there, Yang was going to a bar she knew of that had gunmen for hire, coincidentally the ones I fought before I got into Beacon, and me and Weiss were going to the CCT tower to make a call to Schnee company headquarters about recent shipment raids and official store robberies. How you guys are going to fit in is a question from there,"

Johnny thought for a moment, then presented addition to the plan, "how about we have Natalie and Sun go to the White Fang event with Blake, they're the only ones who could get into something like that, I'll go with Yang to the bar, I think I know which one it is, Neptune and Sylvia can be on fire support for Yang and I if things go south, Alice and Regalia can be on support for the White Fang event, and Nathan can go with Weiss and Ruby, if I remember correctly, his parents run a massive arms distribution and tech company around Remnant,"

Nathan chimed back in, "correct, 'Darkford Arms'. Not a creative name, but it works, the White Fang have to be getting their weapons from somewhere, so I'll call in and ask about any recent raids on any of the stores, labs, factories, or transport,"

Natalie was annoyed, "why does having dog ears have to come back and bite me in the ass? The one group I've been trying to avoid like the plague, who put me through so much shit that it isn't even funny, and I have to go right into one of their fancy little recruitment drives,"

Ruby put an arm around Natalie, "don't worry, you won't be alone, it'll be fine,"

"Thanks,"

Alice was the last one to speak for the planning, "alright, enough comments, let's just get this over with."

**Outside The CCT (5:30 p.m.)**

Weiss, Nathan and Ruby were walking up to the tower while there was still plenty of daylight left, Ruby pulled out her scroll and took pictures of the place, only for Cardin to walk up and snatch the scroll out of Ruby's hand, who took to running after him, screaming, "Hey! That's mine!" only for him to shout back, "Is the little gay bitch mad!? Too bad your girlfriend isn't here to protect you!" Nathan and Weiss started chasing after him as well, until he slammed into someone in the way, Cardin looked up, boiling with anger, "Hey! Stay out of my way!" only to find the uncaring voice of a girl dressed in a tan and green get-up, "I will as soon as you give her scroll back. Now please return it to Ruby,"

Cardin was even more angry, "Why should I!? Little gay bitches don't deserve anything! I think I'll keep it!"

The girl wasn't moving, "please return the scroll to Ruby. It is hers. Or I will return it by force," Ruby had caught up with Cardin at this point, kicking him in the side, then the groin, leaving him writhing on the ground whilst picking up her scroll, turning and seeing the girl who stopped Cardin for her, "Penny! It's been ages!"

Penny looked up, confused, "as far as I remember, it has only been three weeks, are my memories incorrect?"

The others finally caught up, greeting Penny with the same surprise, Nathan speaking up after breathing a few seconds, "I haven't seen you around in a while, how've you been?"

Penny spoke to Nathan with a bit of joy in her voice, "I have been wonderful, I've seen so many new things around Vale! The changing seasons have interested me the most, it mostly either rains or snows in Atlas,"

Weiss chimed in, "believe me, we know, I like it here as well, far more than I ever liked Atlas,"

Ruby finally got over the fact that Penny finally got back and spoke again, "what have you been doing around here? All tourism or some special secret mission?"

Penny lowered her voice to a whisper, "I can't talk about it here, how about somewhere else?"

Ruby whispered back, "okay," then told the other two, "I'm going to catch up with Penny, meet you guys later?"

Nathan and Weiss spoke at the same time, "got it," Nathan then spoke quieter, mostly to himself, "time to make that call."

**Vale Streets (5:45 p.m.)**

Ruby and Penny walked down the street and ducked into an alleyway, Ruby finally spoke up, "so what have you been doing recently?"

Penny whispered to Ruby, "I've been working around Vale, mostly trying to stop a gang of criminals, what about you?"

"Eh, mostly school, but outside of that we've been doing something similar, we're trying to make an investigation,"

"Ooh, that sounds spectacular!"

A crowd cheered in the background, and a voice rang out over speakers, "now, we weren't able to bring this one out physically, but we have images to show off. Now let me present: The Atlesian Paladin!" Ruby looked around the corner to see a presentation from Atlas, a demonstration of the new defense technology, robots. Penny became visibly worried, telling Ruby, "we need to leave,"

Ruby, who was being confused by Penny's sudden fear, voiced as much, "why, what's wrong?"

A soldier looked over, noticing the two behind the wall, he started walking over when Penny grabbed Ruby by the wrist and started running. They sprinted through the alleyways, a foot soldier chasing close behind, they managed to round a corner and lose him. They ran for a bit longer until they managed to come across a dead end. The foot soldier was getting closer, and they had no way to get by without either being caught or taking damage, the dead end happened to be a wall, while not normally scalable, Ruby could clear it with her semblance, so she wrapped her arms under Penny's and jumped, using her semblance to hop over the wall. Relief was short lived though, as they both realized Ruby overshot and sent them too high, the landing was bound to be rough, until Penny twisted Ruby overtop of her and they crashed into the ground with a metallic clang. Ruby got up after a few seconds on the ground, seeing Penny already standing, but she looked off. Penny had a few scrapes on her, but unlike what one would expect, blood and raw skin, there was just grey, almost like metal, Penny was quick to try and hide the scrapes but Ruby was faster, moving her arms out of the way to get a better look, underneath the scrapes _was _metal, Penny looked down, but Ruby still asked, "are you…?"

"Yes, I'm a robot, I'm not human,"

"That wasn't what I was going to ask, but okay, so you're a robot, what's wrong with that?"

"What?"

"I mean, robots are cool. They have all these special features that a human or faunus could never have, I don't see why that's such a problem,"

"I'm not real, that is the problem,"

"Just because you're made of nuts and bolts instead of skin and bones doesn't make you any less real than me, you've still got a soul, I know it,"

"I guess, I do have an aura,"  
"See! You're just as real as any of us!"

Then a voice came from above, "that's all well and good, but I've been trying to find you for a while now," the two turned to run but he shouted after them, "wait! I don't plan on doing anything drastic, I just want to talk,"

Ruby stopped and held Penny back, slowly turning around and asking, "what do you want with Penny?"

"I don't really 'want' anything, I'm just trying to do my job, and before you turn and run, I wanted to ask a few questions, now Penny, could you please stop trying to get away, your father had me looking all over for you,"

Penny was still tugging on Ruby's arm, "why would I trust you? I just want to explore Vale, is that so bad?"

The soldier spoke again, a lot calmer than before, "look, I get it, overprotective parents suck, but I'm getting paid to follow orders, so I follow them. Although we could go around exploring Vale together after all this, as friends?"

Penny was still rather apprehensive about the whole thing, "I do not trust you, I do not know who you are. I will not go with you, now we should get going Ruby,"

The soldier didn't move while Penny started dragging Ruby, but instead just spoke again, "Mikal Rook, that's my name, if it means anything. Can't say I expected to be doing this today, but if you won't comply, then I will be forced to take you by force, and your friend will be under arrest,"  
Penny turned around, but Ruby spoke this time, "I don't know what's going on, but a name isn't going to help us trust you any,"

Mikal was starting to become more desperate, "look, I don't want to arrest a little girl today, can you two just trust me for one minute? You know what? Fine, I can't believe this," he took his weapon off of its holster and placed it on the ground, removing his helmet afterwards, then extended his arm, Penny let go of Ruby, who stood up properly and waited nervously while Penny was thinking, she slowly extended her arm and shook Mikal's hand, who breathed a sigh of relief, "okay, now, can we just go for a walk? Maybe get to know each other along the way?"

Ruby dropped her nervousness as quickly as it came, "sure, I guess we have time to kill," they started out of the alley with the sun set and the lights shining down on the streets, the people had gone home for the night, it was late, and the best time for exploration, Ruby whispering to herself, "I wish Natalie was here," when her scroll rang and a speeding car pulled up to the curb.

**CCT (5:45 p.m.)**

The main lobby was filled with people walking about, either making business calls or with tourists for the festival taking pictures, Weiss and Nathan were walking up to the elevator to go up to the communications deck when two guards stopped them, "identification?" they both raised their scrolls with the ID's and the guards moved out of the way, letting the two into the elevator, Nathan scanned his scroll on the screen for the elevator and pressed the button for the comms deck. Weiss was practicing a fake smile, but failing to get it right, so Nathan decided to try and cheer her up, "hey, I bet these guys are planning to start a _Grimm_ situation," Weiss tried, but couldn't help but smile, "that was terrible… but thanks,"

"Well a smile a day keeps the pain away, am I right?"

"Yeah, I guess, but I do honestly wonder what their plan is. I get the feeling that it's probably something _Dark_,"

"Oh gods, that was awful, I think I need to _Schneeze_," the two were laughing at the terrible puns at this point, until the elevator stopped at the top floor, the pair silenced themselves but still had large smiles across their faces. A hologram appeared at the desk, "hello, where would you like to call?"

Nathan spoke first, "Darkford Household, Atlas,"

"Okay, booth 20,"  
"Thank you,"

The hologram then 'spoke' to Weiss, "hello, where would you like to call?"

"Schnee Dust World Headquarters,"

"Okay, booth 12,"

"Thank you," Weiss sat down at the booth. The screen lit up, the face of the secretary appeared, "hello, how can I help- oh! Ms. Schnee, h-how can I help you?"

"I would like you to find some of these files for me, thank you,"

She sent the list to the secretary, who was confused, "some of these files are extremely sensitive, may I ask why you need them?"

"School project, history of a chosen company,"

"Alright, but be careful with these. Would you like to speak with your father?"

"No thank you," she shut her screen off.

Nathan was sitting at the booth, a bit giddy. He hadn't spoken to his family since he arrived in Vale. The screen lit up, a familiar face appeared, "look who finally decided to call. How've you been?"

"I've actually been doing quite well Ben, although I unfortunately didn't call to catch up. I need to find some files from the archives, can you help me?"

"Sure, why not? What files?"

"I'll send the list," Nathan sent him the list of files he needed,

"Whoa, what on earth are you doing with these?"  
"I'm committing an investigation with some friends. Trying to find leads for now,"

"Ooookaay, can't say I've never done things like that before. Hell I was helping some friends take down a gang when I was in Beacon-"

"Please, save the stories for later, I don't have much time to waste,"  
"Alright, I got the files, sending them now,"  
"Thanks, tell Winter I said hi,"

"I will, call me later?"

"You got it," Nathan shut down the terminal, standing up and turning to see that Weiss was staring over his shoulder. She looked confused, asking, "who was that?"

"That was my brother, Ben, why?"

"He said something about someone named Winter, right?"

"Yeah, she's his wife,"

"I used to know someone named Winter, they ran away a long time ago though. We were sisters, but she ran off when Father found out about someone she was dating. I've never heard from her since,"

"Oh, I… alright, we should get going," Nathan didn't seem to know how to react, it was strange hearing about his sister-in-law's past, she never divulged much about herself. The two took the elevator down, silent the whole way. They stepped out of the building and just looked around, there was no one there to get them, Natalie had dropped them off at the CCT and left, saying she'd return when they were done with the White Fang. Weiss was the one to speak up first, "so what are we going to do?"

"Why don't we look around? I imagine there has to be someplace we haven't seen before,"

"Alright," the pair walked off into the city.

**Vale Streets (9:00 p.m.)**

Nathan and Weiss were walking down the road looking at the decorations, even finding a fairground, they agreed they should bring their teams to the place later. The streets were calm as they walked, not a soul other than the two. Both of their scrolls rang.

**Junior's Nightclub (8:00 p.m.)**

The siblings pulled up to the bar on a moonlit street, the night was young, but it was late enough to give them the cover of darkness. The two bikes were stopped, and four people got off: Johnny and Neptune on one, with Yang and Sylvia on another. They walked into the hall leading to the place, it was more of a nightclub before, but the profits seemed to have dropped after Yang nearly burned the place to the ground while Johnny was trying to get himself a drink for the night. The doors were shut and muffled voices were heard, "they're here! Hold it down!" Yang burst the door open and shouted to the building, "guess who's back~!" Johnny just walked by and down through the crowd of thugs pointing their weapons at the entrance, grabbing the owner by the collar and dragging him over to the counter, letting him ask, "what the hell do you guys want? I'm gonna go broke if you blast the place like last time,"

Johnny spoke in a calm manner, "you may want to call your guys off then, she might start a bit of a ruckus soon if that issue isn't taken care of," the man nodded to one of his goons, and they all backed down, letting Yang walk over to the counter, the owner asked again, "what do you want?"

Johnny smiled, "I want you to pour me a Jack with Cola and answer my questions,"

He looked at him, jumped over the counter, grabbing a bottle and can with a glass, "alright, shoot,"  
Have you ever met a man named Roman Torchwick?" Johnny pulled out a picture with Torchwick's face on it,  
"Yeah, he hired some of my men a while ago, why?"

"What happened to those men?"

"They didn't come back,"

"Okay, so dead, any info on him?"

"I don't have anything on Roman, look, I want to know what's relevant about this?"

"I'm looking for him, if you've got nothing, I'm gonna leave. See you later," he placed some lien on the table and started walking away,

"Wait! There was something else, he came with someone else. A girl named Neo kicked the shit out of some of my guys when they threatened Roman. I hope that helps,"

"I hope so too. Yang, it's time to go," looking over to the blonde, who had been currently beating down most of the men in the bar, she looked over, nodded, and followed him out. The pair got on their bikes and were about to leave when all four of the group's scrolls rang.

**White Fang Hideout (8:30 p.m.)**

"This sucks," Natalie was blunt in her hatred of the White Fang and having to do this,

"Shut up and wear the mask, the faster we get this done, the faster you can go see Ruby, got it?" Blake was getting fairly annoyed with the dog faunus at this point, partly because of the dog part of dog faunus, and partly because she wouldn't stop complaining.

Sun was stuck in the middle of the bickering pair, "What is with these masks anyway? They look like Grimm,"  
Natalie was the one to answer, "people think of them as monsters, so they take on the look of monsters. Their all just feral animals to me,"

"We're going in, shut up," Blake was getting angry while the group walked into the meeting. The floor was crowded with faunus, most wearing the uniform, but the new recruits wore their street clothes, the three faunus on infiltration stood out the most, especially with Sun refusing to close his shirt and cover his front. There was a man on stage who started speaking to the crowd, "good evening all, I understand the constant fight for equality has been increasingly difficult as of late, but that is why we have a recent partner. Let me introduce you to Roman Torchwick!" another man walked across the stage, he was human. The crowd started booing him, he started speaking, "whoa! Hostile much!? I'm pretty sure I hate humanity just as much, if not more than you do. It's not often I get to work with such distinguished individuals as the White Fang, and I hope to continue to work with you all. Now why would I, a human, have such a hatred for humanity? Simple, they took everything from me, my career, my home, my friends, my life, all of it gone, so I hope you can understand me when I say that humanity needs to pay, and I believe I have just the equipment and skills you need to make them," the crowd started cheering him on, he continued, "now, I think you guys may or may not have seen this at the recent Atlesian technology presentation, but I managed to raid a Darkford Arms transport and get my hands on THIS!" the curtain behind Roman dropped, revealing a massive mech, as well as another person, she had pink and brown hair, and she was looking right at the disguised trio. Blake didn't even blink when she turned and shot the junction box, the girl knew exactly who they were. They jumped out of the window, landing on a nearby rooftop. Whilst running across Natalie started splitting off, garnering questions from Blake, "what the hell are you doing!?"

"I'll catch up! I've got transport!" Natalie jumped off the roof while Sun called everyone on his scroll, "we need backup, we've got a massive robot on our asses!"

**Vale (9:00 p.m.)**

Johnny and Yang started up the bikes immediately when the call ended, but the massive stomping sound stopped them in their tracks temporarily, seeing two people running from the new Atlesian Paladin. After that they started moving even faster than they arrived.

Nathan and Weiss were strolling the streets of Vale when they got the call, the roaring of bikes a few seconds later told them exactly where the bot was. Nathan turned to Weiss, "I've got this," he proceeded to pick up Weiss and use his stand to launch into the air. They were flying and saw the freeway up ahead where the bot was, and there were two bikes and a muscle car chasing it.

"What's the landing strategy?" Weiss was finding it harder to speak at such high altitudes and speed,

"Oh, that's up to you, I only really planned for us getting into the air and over there,"

"WHAT!?"

The car pulled up to the curb Penny, Ruby, and Mikal were walking on. The window rolled down and Natalie called out, "get in!" the group got into the car and drove off towards the mech.

**AN: I spent a good while writing this chapter, and it's a long one (for me anyways). I hope you enjoy the setup for the robot near the beginning of Volume 2. I didn't like a lot of stuff between the opening food fight and the city investigation, not much else will be cut though, more changed instead. I personally like to write Roman with a more tragic backstory, him and Neo both. It helps it make more sense if I decide to redeem one or the other, and yes, I decided to somewhat introduce Neo beforehand, I didn't like how such a lethal force just popped into the story out of nowhere, so I decided to give off some hints about her combat capability before she shows up, if you couldn't tell, Neo is one of my favourite characters in RWBY. She's number 2, below Weiss but above Pyrrha(or Jaune, I have a hard time deciding). Alright, I'll stop rambling, Raz3r out!**


	3. Out In Town part 2

The mech was running through the freeway, smashing vehicles out of the way and knocking them in the way of its pursuers. Natalie was having the most trouble avoiding the wreckage it was leaving in its wake, the two bikes being far more maneuverable than a muscle car. It was causing her to wonder if they could keep up the chase in the vehicle, but Natalie had a plan. She flipped a switch on the dashboard, causing a plow like object to come out of the front of the car, shoving the wreckage out of the way instead of dodging it. She wondered where their backup was supposed to be, all she knew was happening was that Blake and Sun were in front trying to get away, Johnny, Neptune, Yang, and Sylvia were on bikes on the chase, and that she had an Atlesian footsoldier, Ruby, and Penny in the car with her. She had no idea where anyone else was, until a loud THUD was heard on the roof of the car, causing Natalie to nearly lose control of the steering.

"WHAT!?" Weiss shouted, Nathan had just told her he had no plan for landing or continuing to chase the mech. Weiss was surprised and a bit angry that he didn't think that far ahead, but it was too late for that now. A car was moving on the road, it had to be Natalie's, it was the only one trying to chase down a massive mech, a plan formed in Weiss' mind in a matter of seconds, placing moving glyphs to slide down onto Natalie's vehicle. Nathan noticed and angled himself to land on the glyphs and slide instead of breaking his legs. Weiss was still being held by him, she knew that it would be painful for him, but there was nothing she could do while he had her in his grip, he would just have to tank any damage with his stand or his body. He landed and slid down the glyphs, hitting the car but losing his grip on Weiss, she nearly fell but placed a glyph underneath herself to steady her body on the moving platform. Nathan stepped over to the side of the vehicle, leaning down and looking through the window, telling them, "it looks like backup has arrived!" this gained silent shock from the occupants of the vehicle, except for Natalie who remained focused on the road, and the vehicles she was currently shoving out of her way, telling Nathan, her voice dripping with sarcasm "well you came at a good fucking time! It seems like Blake just couldn't keep herself out of trouble, and now we have this to deal with! Wouldn't be the first time she's caused me problems!"

Nathan responded with rather innocent curiosity, "it sounds like you have a bit of a problem with Blake,"  
"Yeah, I do. And it's more than just the cat thing. Best I save that for later though," Natalie turned dead serious when it came to talking about Blake nowadays, it made some sense, Natalie was a dog faunus, Blake was a cat faunus, cats and dogs don't really mix. Nathan lifted himself back up onto the roof of the car where Weiss was waiting, nothing they could really do until they got closer, which seemed like it would be a problem until an orange, blue, and green blur flashed by, leaving a trail of slightly melted ice behind.

Alice was flying through the city at an increasingly high speed, with Regalia glued to her back using her semblance to produce attraction glyphs on Alice's back and Regalia's hand, she refused to actually hold on to Alice for some reason. They flew through the city and out onto the freeway, continuing to move faster and faster, until they passed the mech, Alice melded the path of ice in front of her into a ramp, launching the two upwards into the air. Regalia pulled a rifle off of her back and fired, distracting the Paladin and causing it to try and focus on her as two loud shotgun blasts were heard, and ice formed at the feet of the robot, and one of them being destroyed with a spark of electricity flashing off of it and the other destroyed by a white chain as two bikes rode around it and stopped. The top was being shoved from the inside as someone was trying to get out, but Natalie drove her car around to the side, and used the plow on the front to shove the remaining wreckage off the freeway and down onto the ground below. The group got off and out of their vehicles walking up to the ledge.

The group was standing over the ledge when before one could speak Johnny transformed his shotgun back into a blade and dropped it, jumping off a few seconds later. The blade stuck into the ground with the hilt facing up, Johnny landed on the hilt and pushed his momentum forward towards the mech torso with only arms left, knocking the sword back into the pillar behind him. He formed his gauntlets and punched the mech right where the opening would be, breaking the mech into pieces and launching one Roman Torchwick across the ground. Roman slowly got up, picking up his cane in the process, spitting out blood from his mouth, aura couldn't protect from internal damage as well, he brought up the cane and fired, Johnny didn't activate his semblance, instead using the blast to launch himself towards his sword, landing with his feet against the wall holding himself up with his hand on the hilt of Excalibur. RWBY, the rest of his team, and Sylvia and Regalia jumped down in front of him. Roman looked at the people in front of him and called out, "hey Neo! I could use a little help here!" and a short girl with pink and brown hair jumped out of seemingly nowhere, Natalie's brow furrowed as she immediately shot Neo with an anti-tank round from her battle axe. The girl with pink and brown hair blocked it easily with a parasol she opened up, and when the parasol moved out of the way, there was nothing behind it, and the roar of an airship's engine could be heard as a plane came out of the woodworks with Roman and Neo on it.

"Too bad we didn't get to see her fight," Johnny lamented, everyone stared at him in silent shock.

Nathan was the first to speak out, "I would rather not die today, thank you,"

"What do you mean? We don't even know her capabilities, how would you know if she could kill you or not?"

"She disappeared and reappeared out of thin air! How do you think we'd win against that!?" Nathan was a bit pissed at Johnny, it was almost as if he had no idea what risk they were at. "We'd all gang up on her, I think 10 to one would probably end in a win for us," Johnny wasn't getting the point,

"I… I have no words. Wait, I do have some words, SHE CAN DISAPPEAR AND REAPPEAR OUT OF THIN AIR! That is not something 'more numbers' can combat, Johnny, just because you really want to fight something in the real world doesn't mean we should fight the first enemy that comes our way!" Nathan finally blew a fuse a bit at Johnny, he finally got a bit sick of Johnny's "take them out fast" attitude that doesn't account for the danger of his opponent, it made sense, as Johnny would never really seem to need to worry about a danger the enemy poses as long as he has his semblance active, but he couldn't have his semblance active all the time, watching him fight with it, grabbing things seems to be difficult for him when there's a chance that his hand will just pass through it. Now wasn't the time for an argument though, it was best they left it for when they didn't have a chance to be spotted by police, the group left the area and headed back to Beacon.

**AN: I think that might be the closest Nathan has ever been to completely pissed off so far, I hope you guys are enjoying the story. It keeps taking me longer and longer to write these chapters, it might just be that I find it a bit difficult to write fight scenes. I have problems with displaying actions in words sometimes. I'm trying to improve on it but I'm just much better at writing dialogue and more emotional scenes. Alright, Raz3r out!**


	4. Sister's Spar, Caught Killer

"_I see, I'll get Caliburn and meet you at the gate," Arthur got up off of his throne. He had been spending a lot of time sitting there recently, wondering how the world ended up in this mess. Now there was a woman who could supposedly wield magic powers and immortal, it surprised him that such a person would dare try and trick him like a fool. He knew magic did not exist, nor did immortality, especially not with Caliburn in his hand. The armory was as usual, a small room with armaments of the King's own collection, but one was necessary for today, the shimmering blue blade, known to the rest of the world as the relic of destruction, but it was his Caliburn, a blade which knew no boundaries of those it could kill, known to slay many beasts claimed to be immortal, it was one of the few things that could possibly be claimed to be magic, but the likelihood of that was minimal, magic was just a tall tale told by the old men in pubs. Arthur was finally approaching the gates, Caliburn attached to his side, multiple guards at the ready, "open it already!" Arthur bellowed, his men were being slow, or apprehensive was a better word, scared,_

"_Sorry sir, opening it now!" the gate opened to reveal a lone woman, her skin was white, not pale, but pure white with red veins coming up her arms and face. She was carrying no weapon, nor wearing clothes fit for combat, Arthur didn't lower his guard though, as the most unprepared looking fighters were usually the most ferocious. "I see this is the reception I'm getting. I just wish to have an audience with the King, I mean no harm," the woman spoke,_

_Arthur laid a hand on his sword, "how should you expect I trust you? I've been having enough problems here. The world is falling apart, the Grimm are at everyone's doorstep, the kingdoms are looking like they're about to start another Great War again, not to mention you look half Grimm yourself. I cannot risk the kingdom of Vytal falling into the same fate as the others, we live in peace and equality here! I will not fall for your tales of magic and witchcraft either, nor your claims of immortality, leave woman!"  
_"_I come to seek peace, and I was hoping the one King Arthur would help me achieve that, but it appears that he is a paranoid man, reliant on an ancient artifact of magic to defend his kingdom. But, if proof of my magic and immortality is what you want, then proof I shall give," the woman generated several balls of multicoloured lights,_

"_What in the bloody underworld?" Arthur couldn't do anything but stare at the lights,_

"_Careful, you will go blind from these. Now, strike me down with that blade of yours. I wonder if the fabled relic of destruction can truly kill any being?" the woman gestured to the sheathed blade still attached to Arthur's hip. Arthur nodded, and slowly approached the woman, drawing Caliburn and readying to strike down upon the woman. He raised the blade, but at the last second, shifted his aim to cut off her arm. The arm came clean off, much to the woman's surprise, "that wasn't supposed to happen! What the hell is that blade!?" she seemed to panic, but Arthur was more curious about the stump where the arm was, the woman should have been bleeding to death, but all that was there was red flesh and white bone, no blood pouring out._

"_Come inside, I have something that can replace your arm," the king was willing to accept this turn of events, as long as she promised peace,_

"_Oh, you do? You have my deepest gratitude. I was expecting my arm to at least regenerate, the power of the relic was certainly no tall tale. If you had brought that down upon my head I would have died for certain,"_

"_That is the power of Caliburn. I am also in possession of a staff that can create or power anything, but only one at a time. Meaning I can only heal one of my men at a time. What is your name?"_

"_Salem, The Witch, I am known by many names,"  
_"_Ah, yes. I have heard of the tales of the immortal witch, content to not meddle in mortal affairs. What brings you to my kingdom?"_

"_I come to seek peace, as I stated, this world is in turmoil. I can't stand to see the people like those I once stood by falling before these creatures of Grimm. Your kingdom is remarkably beautiful, I might add,"  
_"_The kingdom of Vytal is usually at its best around these times of year. I am glad we have similar goals, though 'like those you once stood by' worries me slightly. Just how long has it been since you have worked with the rest of humanity?"_

"_I worked with them in a rebellion against the gods, but the gods destroyed them, and left a new recreation of humanity in the dust, pardon the pun. I've seen Faunus treated horribly in other kingdoms, but yours seems different, how do you bring them all together?"_

"_It was less me bringing people together and more people bringing themselves together, I was never so much owning the kingdom as I am more of a leader of people with similar ideas of equality and peace. Having magic artifacts certainly helps though,"_

"_I can tell. How much farther until we reach the staff?"_

"_We are here," it was a large chamber, a staff of gold with a blue crystal tip sat in the center. Salem and Arthur approached it, Arthur grabbing it and pointing the tip at the place where Salem's arm once was, the arm suddenly regrowing into its place._

"_That is truly miracle work, sir. I'm impressed,"  
_"_Please, it is only what I would do for one of my own wounded, and call me Arthur, or King Arthur if that is what you prefer,"_

"_Alright then Arthur, I appreciate this. What is your plan though? Why do you have me here, instead of leaving me for 'dead'?"_

"_I believe you can help me unify the kingdoms. I was never really one for superstition, but there was an old prophecy I have read of that always struck me as possible. The Prophecy of Unification was the title, not very creative, but straight to the point, it says that, 'the world will only unite under the rule of a king and his council of three. The king must be a great one, a champion of peace and unity, and his council of three wise people: a nigh-immortal of strange ability, the strongest of the silver eyed clan, and a Belmont. The only others who can take these roles will be their descendants or another person of these attributes.' that essentially being the translation to more modern english from the old text. I believe you may be the one of strange ability, already being immortal, you fill the role and then some. All we are missing are the three others,"  
_"_I think you may be the great king Arthur, you seem to fit the description well,"_

"_I don't think so. How could I be a great king when I let the other kingdoms get away with vile actions that bring pain upon others?"_

"_It does say that the world will be united under the group. You may well be the king mentioned, you just don't have your council yet,"_

"_Maybe you're right, but we need to find these people first. The silver eyed warrior will come first, I am on relatively good terms with their clan. The problem is the Belmont, where would we find one? They haven't been around for years, and they only come out when the world is under a greater darkness than the Grimm,"_

"_What greater darkness could there be than the Grimm? I don't understand,"_

"_It is a man, who leads an army of demons. Vlad Tepes, 'The Impaler', Count Dracula. A man who has forsaken his humanity for eternal life, at the cost of weakness to sunlight. He was last defeated by his own son Adrian, otherwise known as Alucard, but he was not killed. Dracula rises every five decades or so, and a Belmont rises in response to defeat this evil. The last Belmont needed the help of Alucard to defeat him, now that he is gone, will the next Belmont be able to stop him? I do not know the answers, but we must aid the next Belmont in his mission or we not have a Belmont whilst I am alive,"_

"_This is a predicament. But I have faith you will make the right decisions, and I will stay by your side, as your first council member."_

Johnny woke up, not in a sweat this time. His dream wasn't a nightmare for once, but an actual dream, and an interesting one at that, "_just who were they?"_ he thought, before shaking it off and going to get to the gym for the early morning work out session.

Nathan got up, looked over and saw Johnny was missing. It was back to the usual, Johnny was off in his workout with the others that joined him, leaving Nathan and Alice alone in the room. "Hey, it's time to get up," Nathan looked at Alice, who was sleeping peacefully, until slowly turning over and crawling out of under her sheets,

"Ugh, back to the usual schedule, again,"

"Well, at least we aren't risking our lives for a criminal investigation now, just normal school for once,"

"I guess, but it was fun while it lasted in a way,"

"Don't lie to me, you just liked watching Johnny fight a bunch of criminals didn't you?"

"What!? No!"

"Come on, be honest. I won't tell anyone,"

"Fine, yes, I admit it. Happy now?"

"Sure, one quick tip: he's probably not going to be the one making the first move. He has a lot to focus on it seems,"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Can we just get moving? Sitting here talking gets so boring when it's just you,"  
"That's just because Johnny isn't around," these were Nathan's last words to Alice before she walked out of the room. She would never admit it to anyone, but he was right, everything else seemed to just get more boring without Johnny nearby, except for fighting her older sister, that never got old, "hello Alice!" speaking of which, "hey sis, how are you this morning?"

"Alright, but you seem rather downtrodden. What's wrong?"

"I'm so bored. I don't get it, why do I get so bored without Johnny?"

"Maybe it's because you like him?"

"Yeah, that sounds about right. How are things going between you and Jaune?"

Pyrrha's face blushed, "what do you mean?"

"Huh? Am I seriously the self aware one of us this time?"

"I don't know what you are talking about,"

"Look, I don't know if it could be any more obvious you two have a thing for each other at this point, I mean, look at yourself in the mirror. You're turning more red than your own hair,"

"Okay, I admit it, I do 'have a thing for him' as you put it. But he still thinks I'm too good for him, and I don't know how to get him to realize that I could actually, you know, like him,"

"Heh, wait for class, I've got a perfect idea,"

"I hope this one works,"

"Trust me, it will,"

The arena was worn in from the day's battles, there was likely only time for two more battles. Goodwitch called out, "alright, now let's get our most prominent fighter on stage. Pyrrha Nikos," the redhead warrior got up and stepped down to the arena, Goodwitch called again, "now, is there any challengers?"

Alice stood up, "yeah, right here," she walked down to the arena, facing down her sister. The two watched each other carefully, it was clear Alice had been waiting for this opportunity for a while now. Goodwitch looked over the opponents, "alright, are you both ready?" they both nodded. Goodwitch raised her hand, signaling a countdown before bringing her arm down to start the fight. Neither side moved at first, they waited for the other to make the first move, there seemed to be some understanding that whoever made the first move would lose, and the battle was currently about wearing down the other's patience and nerve, it was a far cry from Pyrrha's style, usually opting to take immediate action and taking advantage of the surprise the enemy would be facing of an immediate attack. Alice hadn't actually sparred yet in the year, so it was going to be one hell of a shock to the audience watching her semblance in action, quite a spectacle too. Alice shifted her staff in front of her, Pyrrha braced herself for the first attack, but Alice then proceeded to split the staff in half and press a switch on the ends, transforming the sticks into blades, Pyrrha grinned at this, as if Alice just inadvertently revealed a weakness. She decided to rush Alice down at that moment, swinging at the girl, seeming to spare no mercy for her sister, but a look of confusion slowly etched its way across her face as Alice blocked every swing and even managed to successfully retaliate, putting Pyrrha on the backfoot. In an attempt to break Alice's push, Pyrrha threw her shield out into the arena while continuing to try and block all of Alice's swings from both blades with her sword, which wouldn't work forever, but the shield in the arena was thrown in a certain way as to come back to her, but something didn't seem right to the audience, throwing a shield to specifically come back to you is hard enough to do outside of a fight, but it should be nearly impossible to make such a throw in the middle of a fight, especially whilst on the backfoot, and focusing on defense, but it came back anyway, almost. Alice saw through her tactics and brought her foot back, kicking the shield. Pyrrha looked to be trying to recall her shield and defend herself at the same time, which wasn't working, there were several gaps in her defense and Alice was getting in more and more hits, and the shield now seemed to be trapped in a pillar of ice that was in the exact location Alice kicked, leaving the "invincible girl" without a defense other than her sword, so Pyrrha backed off and swapped her sword to a rifle, firing shots at Alice from a distance, the only feasible way Alice could defend herself from them was running and dodging, but she did something else too. She started swinging at air with her swords while dodging as many of Pyrrha shots as she could, she opted not to rush Pyrrha while swinging blindly into the air, which surprised everyone but Pyrrha, who had a growing face of horror as she realized Alice's plan too late for her to intervene. There were slices of what appeared to be flames lingering in the air all over the arena, once Alice seemed to finish placing the slices in the air and dodging Pyrrha's bullets, but there was one thing Alice seemed to forget, the ice pillar holding Pyrrha's shield now seemed to be melting thanks to the excess heat, just loosening the shield enough for Pyrrha to recall it. Alice was running towards Pyrrha looking like she wasn't paying any attention to anything else, but Pyrrha noticed that Alice didn't have to pay attention because the flames sitting in the air exploded when her shield touched them, knocking it even farther away. Alice finally reached Pyrrha and started attacking. They locked into a clash of one blade against two, and Alice seemed to be subtly turning the battle to push Pyrrha into the flame minefield that the rest of the arena had become. Pyrrha realized this and started trying to find some kind of opening to back off, but Alice wasn't going to allow that, she kept pushing and focused entirely on offense, but Pyrrha didn't have time to take advantage of it, she was slowly being pushed into a flame, and if one flame touched her, it would cascade, leaving her aura ruined, even more ruined than the consistent chipping Alice had done to it before, looking at both meters, Pyrrha was sitting at a bit below half, whilst Alice was sitting at about three quarters. "_The 'invincible girl' will fall today. Maybe Jaune will finally see her as an equal, and I can finally move out of my sister's shadow. The 'invincible girl' will lose, but Pyrrha will win, and so will I," _were Alice's last thoughts before Pyrrha finally fell back into the fire. **BOOM!** Pyrrha was launched all over the arena like a ragdoll, the last bits of her aura were finished when Alice kicked up an ice wall where Pyrrha was flying. Pyrrha sat slumped against the wall, but looking closer, one could see a grin on her face. Alice leaned down and held out a hand, which Pyrrha gladly took, willing to be held on her feet by her sister, barely groaning out, "those blades aren't metal, are they?"

"Obviously not," Alice helped Pyrrha off the stage and into her seat beside Jaune before taking her seat by Johnny, who was staring into space with a blank look.

"Blake, we need to have a talk," Natalie had barged into Team RWBY's dorm a bit after sparring, catching all of them off guard, and catching Yang and Weiss off guard when she grabbed Blake by the wrist and started dragging her out. The only one who had any idea what was going on was Ruby, who sat with a face of silent worry,

"Ruby, what's going on?" Yang asked, simply shocked by Natalie's aggressiveness, and by Ruby's lack of reaction,

"Something that was going to happen sooner or later, I'm glad Natalie decided to confront her instead of me," Ruby was being intentionally vague, a skill she picked up from Natalie, learning quickly that it was a good method of hiding stuff from people you care about and that care about you,

"What's that supposed to mean?" Weiss clearly saw through it though, Ruby couldn't honestly hide it from them, especially when it involved their teammate,

"Well, on our last date, we visited Natalie's apartment in Vale, and she found some stuff she had forgotten about getting into Beacon, like-" "I JUST WANT A STRAIGHT ANSWER! WHY DID YOU KILL THEM!?" "-that, Natalie was orphaned around 15, and had been surviving on her own in Vale for a while before getting into Beacon, and swore she would avenge her parents, trying to find their murderers with the only real leads she had, that they were White Fang, and two names written in blood,"

"Holy shit," was Yang's only response.

"Please, just stop! Put me down!," Blake was up against a wall, held by her collar by Natalie, who was raging,

"I don't think so, you know, maybe it was a different Belladonna, but there's only one Belladonna around here, and that's _you_! Now you have some explaining to do! If I don't decide to kill you first!" there was a terrifying sincerity in Natalie's voice, having the desired effect on Blake,

"I didn't want to kill them! I'm not like that anymore! I swear!" Blake was caught between terror and guilt,

"Then explain yourself! Please, that's all I want at this point," Natalie's voice broke, she was barely holding Blake up at this point,

"I… I was forced. I never wanted to hurt innocent people, but… I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know that won't bring them back, but it's all I can do at this point," guilt was the only thing on Blake's mind at this point,

"There is one thing you can do, you can help me take them down. You can help me destroy them, all of them," Natalie was back to being terrifying,

"I will, I promise," Blake steeled herself this time, Natalie put her down, letting her duck back into the room. Natalie stepped back, bumping into the wall and sliding down, burying her head in her knees, tearing up. Ruby stepped out of the room, seeing Natalie, and immediately moved to comfort her.

**Alice's Semblance: Hot Headed and Cold Feet. She can create ice from the waist down, and fire from the waist up. The fire can have different properties depending on the place the fire comes from above the waist, if it is channeled through one of her blades, it creates an explosive mine in the air where it sliced, in she shoots it out of her hand, it creates a flamethrower that can double as a jet, if she covers her fist in fire, it can create an extra powerful flame punch, the staff has the same effect as the fist covered in fire. When it comes to ice, there's two different abilities, skating rink, and simple ice, the skating rink is basically an area of effect ice floor, allowing her to make a sort of skating rink, hence the name, the simple ice is small pieces of ice that summons from her foot, able to create things like ice pillars or ice shields. It's not a very simple semblance to explain, so I hope this did it justice.**

**Regalia's Semblance: Attraction Glyphs. They are different from Schnee glyphs. Regalia's semblance can only summon two glyphs that attract to each other, it's far more simple than Alice's semblance that's for damn sure.**

**AN: That was days in the making, these chapters are getting longer and harder to write. It's still fun to write, just more difficult to write as well. I hope you all are enjoying the story so far, sorry about forgetting to explain the semblances of Alice and Regalia last chapter, so I explained the semblances now instead. Natalie now has a backstory as well, and if people ask, Alice's backstory is kinda easy, sister of Pyrrha Nikos, her biggest problem was being in Pyrrha's shadow, not really much else. I'm holding back on explaining Johnny's story because I want it to hit hard, so I want to time it perfectly. I hope you enjoyed this one, Raz3r out!**


	5. Relationship Status

"_Kill them, both of them,"_

"_Why!? What did they do?"  
_"_Any faunus who thinks to be in a relationship with a human is a traitor to our cause. And traitors must be eliminated,"  
_"_But a relationship like this should be a sign of progress! That we all feel the same basic feelings! Why are we doing this?"_

"_This isn't a sign of progress Blake! It's a sign of submission! That we'll freely make ourselves loyal to humans because of some petty emotion,"_

"_But, we love each other, right?"_

"_If you really think you love me, then you will help me kill them,"_

"_I… I'll do it," the two walked down the road towards the apartment complex. It was in view, the home of their targets, Derek and Sallie. The pair approached the door to the apartment, one knocking on the door, and a swift answer came. The man was a dog faunus, ears flopping down his head, he spoke with frustration, "look Adam, I'm not going to do one of your 'missions' okay? I help to protect everyone, not just a select group of people,"_

"_That is not what we are here for,"_

"_Well then you might just end up out in the alley with your little friend here. I don't deal with the White Fang's bullshit, so please leave," in a flash of light, a blade came towards him, only for it to smash to the ground, it was the blade of Gambol Shroud. Adam took advantage of the man's one use semblance, grabbing his blade and ripping it out of his sheath, slicing straight through the man's apparent aura, creating a massive wound on his stomach. Blake picked up her weapon to finish him off, but Adam stopped her, "let him bleed," a woman entered the room, a human, who looked at her husband, then at the two White Fang members standing in the room, and screamed, "YOU FUCKING FERAL ANIMALS!" before running up to attack with a chair. Blake immediately took advantage of the woman's lack of aura, killing her immediately, the two left after that. What they didn't know was that the man had managed to write two names in his own blood, "Belladonna" and "Taurus"._

Blake woke in a cold sweat. It was midnight, but she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep anymore that night, again.

Classes were over for the day finally, and everyone was filing out of the room. Blake was a bit on the slower side today though, being the last one to notice the bell, almost falling asleep in class, and being the slowest to actually leave the desks for the door. Yang noticed, and decided now was the best time for what was a long overdue conversation. The timing was probably the biggest coincidence though, as the dance was in a few days, and everyone was preparing for it. Yang managed to quietly close the door before Blake could leave, but the faunus nearly walked into it anyways. Yang grabbed her shoulder and pointed her towards the desk, which she proceeded to walk to and curl up on, "that's actually kind of cute," Yang commented, she felt like she was finally able to do so now,

"Cute has nothing to do with this Yang," Blake stated, in a dead voice,

"Um, I wanted to have a chance to speak with you, alone. So, here we are," Yang was getting more nervous,

"Well what could this be about, hopefully it's some better news than most of the past few days," Blake still sounded mostly dead inside, but there seemed to be an inner sadness to the words,  
"What's wrong? I mean, I get the whole black, isolated, and somewhat emo thing you have, but you never usually sound _this_ depressed," Yang was worried, she expected Blake to be a bit more uppity about Yang being a bit more social to her,

"I've just been having a shitty past few days, nothing too special,"

"Well, you could tell me what exactly made those days shitty. It can't be something that difficult to fix compared to everything else that's been going on,"

"Guilt, an absolute fuck-ton of guilt, and I don't know what to do with it, or how to deal with it. It's kept me awake at night even, though that should have been obvious, I just can't seem to feel anything else anymore after finding out I'm partially responsible for orphaning another person, a faunus, in the name of some fucked up crusade for supposed 'equality'. I don't know what to think anymore," Blake's voice was cracking a bit, she was tearing up, but felt Yang sit her up and hug her, the blonde girl's embrace feeling especially warm due to Yang's semblance. Blake broke at that point, just wrapping her arms around Yang and crying into her shoulder while Yang continued to tell her she would be okay. It was a while before Blake stopped crying, but Yang was the first to speak, "I hope you can feel at least a bit better now. I did have something else I wanted to talk about, but I can keep hugging you like this if you need me to,"

"Well, I feel better, if it wasn't to ask what was wrong, then why did you want to talk to me alone?" Blake was certainly feeling more awake now, far more attentive than before, she quickly realized that Yang was talking to her, alone. Yang was the girl who seemed to avoid interacting with her, and whenever she did, it was always quickly, because whenever they did stick together for long periods of time, one or the other started feeling a bit nervous and had to leave, neither would admit to being nervous around the other though.

"I wanted to talk to you to say… Iloveyou,"

"What?"

"I… I love you, I wanted to get that off of my chest. It's been killing me inside not to tell you and I just didn't know if you were into girls or if you would even want to be with someone so, just open about everything, I feel like I'm too social for someone like you. Not in a bad way,"

"I… I… ah to hell with it," and what might have been a combination of Blake's lack of sleep, and her inability to communicate with words at the moment, she forcefully pressed her lips against Yang's, trying as hard as she could to tell her she felt the same way without speaking. Yang looked surprised to say the least, but took it with grace, leaning into the kiss.

Johnny was sitting in the room working on some of the stuff they needed to get done for class, when Alice walked in. "Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?" Alice looked rather nervous about something, Johnny had an idea what was about to happen,

"Yeah sure, what's up?"

"Well, there's the dance coming up soon and…"

"You wanted to ask if I would go with you right?"

"I, yeah, I did. How did you know?"

"You're usually always trying to find time to hang around me, so I kinda assumed you would ask at some point,"

"You are certainly smarter than you look,"

"If you think so. My answer is yes,"  
"Really?"

"Of course, I wouldn't have anyone else to go with anyways, and besides, I like you too. I just felt like I'm a bit too broken to be able to admit it a lot of the time, but here we are,"  
"Yeah, here we are," the two sat down on a bed and continued talking.

The dorm of JNPR was empty minus Pyrrha, she hoped the display actually managed to convey that she wasn't some goddess, completely unattainable by everyone, she actually had someone in mind to ask to the dance, someone who everyone thought was just incompetent, but Pyrrha saw a light in him. Even besides that, Jaune was fun to talk to, always kind, and was actually really brave in some situations, he was just held back by his lack of skill with weaponry, aura, no semblance, it would appear as a wonder she found much appealing about him at all to anyone else. Pyrrha noticed the door open and sat down in her chair, pretending to do schoolwork she already completed, Jaune walked in, and sat down on his bed, apparently listening to some music. Pyrrha twisted her chair around, catching the attention of Jaune, "oh! Hey Pyrrha, I didn't notice you were in here. Are you feeling alright? That fight looked brutal for you,"

"I'm fine, thanks for asking. You know, you're the only one other than my sister that actually worries about my emotions. I'm glad for that,"

"Well, you are my partner, and I was raised with seven sisters. It was kind of easy to learn emotional support from that,"

"I guess so, but… I was wondering…"

"Wondering what? Are you okay?"

"I… I was wondering if you would come to the dance with me?"

"Wait… what? Like, as your date?" Jaune looked like he just saw Pyrrha strip down right in front of him,

Pyrrha giggled, "yes, that is what I mean. Will you?"

Jaune attempted to recover his composure, "of course, of course I'll go with you. Why wouldn't I?"

"Well, I figured you thought I was 'too far out of your league' or some other phrase people use,"

"I… I did think you were too far out of my league, way too far. I never would have guessed you would ask me to the dance,"

"I know, but look at you now, you've certainly improved in everything else as well,"

"Thanks, I wonder what's going to come next."

Nathan was walking back to Beacon from Vale with a flower in his hand, he had wanted to ask Weiss to the dance and figured now was the best time. On his way back he saw Weiss talking with someone else outside, Neptune. He hid behind a wall to listen in on what was happening, he was hoping it wasn't what he thought it was, but that was soon proven false, "it's a nice night right?" Neptune actually seemed to be making small talk that wasn't flirting for once, despite what he knew was about to happen, Nathan couldn't help but feel somewhat proud,

"Yes, I suppose it is, now unless you have something to say, I have some business to attend to,"

"I do actually, I wanted to ask you: will you come to the dance with me?" Nathan walked away after that, he felt he knew the answer already, Neptune was far cooler than he was, probably able to treat Weiss better as well. What did he have anyway? A public name? A band? It was stupid of him to think she would actually want him. It was stupid of him to actually think he could have what he used to. It was stupid to think he actually managed to get over the death that happened only a few years prior. Life wouldn't give him a chance to fully heal, it would never give him that chance. He walked far out of earshot, then threw his flower on the ground, stomping it, then falling to the ground himself, screaming, "DAMN IT ALL!" staying there and crying for a bit before picking himself up and dragging himself to his room.

Nathan opened the door to the dorm room, failing to notice Alice and Johnny staring at him as he walked over to his bed and flopped himself onto it, not bothering to change and just crying on the sheets, "Nathan, are you all right?" Johnny walked over, sitting on the bed adjacent, facing his backside,

"Does it look like I'm fucking alright Johnny?" Nathan nearly shouted,

"You could at least tell me what's wrong,"  
"I'm not going to the dance,"  
"That doesn't really say much,"  
"Why does it matter to you?"

"Because you're my teammate and one of my best friends. Just tell me what happened,"

"I was going to go ask Weiss to the dance right?"

"Yeah," Johnny knew something happened to do with her, Nathan never called Weiss by her name, it was always Snow,

"Well, I'm coming back from Vale with a flower I bought for her, and I see… I see Neptune talking to her. He asked her to the dance, and I knew she would say yes to him, he has so much more to offer than I do. I just wanted to feel better here, not like the kid who wanted so badly to end it all in combat school,"

"Um, no offense, but you might be overreacting, she never actually said yes to him, you still might have a chance," Johnny was kind of annoyed, but was willing to deal with it, he had dealt with emotionally hurt people before,

Alice was far more willing to voice her discontent though, "look Nathan, can you stop acting like a whiny baby because someone you like might actually like someone else? Like come on, here you are crying over someone that _may or may not _like you, and you refuse to actually go find out if she does, you should just wipe off your tears and go ask, cry about it later. Do you honestly think you're the only person who's ever had dating trouble before?"

Nathan was still nearly shouting, "what makes you think you know me so well!? What makes you think you know anything I've been through!?"

"That doesn't matter right now. Just get up, and go talk to her. Ask. Do you know how hard it is to get a date being related to someone famous, no one wants you, they want the famous sibling, just grow up and realize that your problems won't be solved by sitting on your bed and crying your eyes out,"

Nathan finally wiped his tears, "you know what, maybe you're right, I'll go ask, but I may or may not come back crying again,"

"Well at least if you come back crying again, we know that it was a definite answer, and you actually have some reason to act all hurt like this,"

"Yeah, I'm gonna get going, see you both later, and try not to let me come back catching you two making out," Nathan coyly suggested, Johnny and Alice could barely hide their shocked expressions. Nathan walked up to the door, dusted himself off, and opened the door, revealing Weiss standing right in front of it, ready to knock. Nathan looked to be the more shocked of the two, but quickly composed himself, "hey Weiss, how are you doing?"

"I'm doing well, can we talk?"

"Sure, why not?"

Johnny and Alice got up and stepped out of the door as Johnny told them, "we should probably leave you two alone, have fun!" before winking at Nathan from behind Weiss.

Weiss decided to continue the conversation, "so, can I come in?"

"Yeah, sure," Nathan stepped away from the door, letting Weiss into the room, then closing the door,

"I'm not going to delay it, I like you, and I was hoping you would accompany me to the dance," Weiss simply stated, as if this kind of thing was normal to her,

"Oh, I see. Then I shall accompany Madame Schnee to the dance," Nathan joked in a stereotypical "rich" voice, getting a laugh from Weiss,

"I didn't expect to feel so attacked yet find that so funny at the same time. You really do know how to make anyone laugh,"

"It's my specialty, sort of. You can add it to the list of things you'll probably eventually hate about me,"

"What!? No, I like laughing, I wish I could more often. Is something wrong?"

"I mean, there was, but not anymore, and it's kind of embarrassing anyways,"

"What did I say about telling others about your issues?"

"I did, Johnny and Alice heard about it,"

"Well I want to hear it too, a solid relationship isn't built on secrets,"

"Alright, I thought you were going to go to the dance with Neptune,"

"What?"

"I thought I would never be good enough for you, I mean, look at me, do I look like anyone worth talking about?"

Weiss looked him over, it was the first time she actually got a good look at his clothes, he wore a black jacket with a purple t-shirt underneath, black pants with only two simple pockets, he always wore sleeves on his arms though, probably to hide something he wanted no one to see. The style suited him, but it looked like the jacket was unable to close, he seemed to have muscles too big for the coat to contain.

"I certainly see something worth talking about," Weiss stated, wiping blood off her lip,  
"Um, I think your nose is bleeding,"

"Yes. Yes it is,"

"Are you going to do something about it?"

"Not until I'm done looking at… oh my gods… that looks amazing,"

"Snow, could you please do something about your nose bleed? Blood loss isn't fun to suffer from, and I think you're gonna stain my partner's bed,"

"What? Oh… oh holy shit! Where's the tissue box?"

"I've got it," Nathan used his stand to grab the box from the desk, Weiss took a tissue and stuffed it in her nose, preventing more bleeding for the time being,

"I can't believe I've never gotten a good look at those before,"

"Look, I know you're trying to compliment me, but I think I understand even more why girls don't like it when guys can't stop talking about their chest size now. Could you please stop staring?"  
Weiss finally tore her gaze from Nathan's abs and looked at his face, "I'm sorry, I just got lost staring at… that. I hope you can forgive me?"

"Of course I forgive you, it's just, if you want to compliment me, try not to get a nose bleed and lose all train of thought while you do so, and I'll try and return the courtesy,"

"That… that makes sense. That was all I wanted to say, see you tomorrow?"

"Not yet," Nathan put his hands around Weiss' waist, she just grinned,

"I figured as much," Weiss kissed him, only for Alice to walk in the room at that moment,

"What's going on?" she asked, rather calmly considering she just walked in on two people kissing,

Nathan was the first to say anything, "exactly what it looks like. Why does it matter to you?"

"Well, I personally prefer that your affectionate moments be held outside of the room the entire team can access at any moment,"

Weiss chimed in, "she's right, maybe we should take this somewhere else,"

Alice sighed in relief, "great, I don't want to hear about it in this room from now on, I'll make sure it applies to all of us,"

Nathan and Weiss left, leaving Alice alone in her thoughts, "_I wonder what Johnny's doing right now?"_

Johnny was walking into the library, at night there were very few people in the place, a small select number who were studying to keep their grades up above the rest. Alice wanted to go back to the room and actually try and get some sleep before the next day, but Johnny had other plans. He knew his grades were good enough, but he decided good enough wasn't enough for his future, some extra studying was going to be necessary, and it would keep him up, preventing him from more nightmares. His nightmares had been affecting him even more recently, he would wake up in a cold sweat, which was the usual, but it would be around one in the morning, and he couldn't get back to sleep. The nightmares were more disjointed than before, but the memories brought up were far more damaging, he only hoped his teammates wouldn't notice, so he needed to keep up in everything, even if he was sleep deprived. He was stuck in his thoughts when he bumped into someone. A woman nearly fell on the floor beside him, but was upright again in a matter of seconds. The woman looked confused for a second but her expression of a casual smirk came to, finally saying something, "thanks for the save,"

"It's no problem, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, who might you be?"

"Johnny Swift, and you?"  
"Cinder Fall. I must ask, do you have someone for the dance?"

"Yeah, sorry. I imagine someone like you wouldn't really have problems getting a date though, you look remarkably pretty,"

"Thank you, I'll keep looking, although I have one more question to ask, where are the international dorms? My team and I have been looking for hours, and we still haven't found the damn place,"  
"I certainly understand the feeling, hell if I couldn't pull up a map on my scroll at any time I would be so lost around here. The dorms are just over there," Johnny pointed across from the library to a rather inconspicuous building,

"Thanks again, I would have never guessed that was where it was, I should go get my teammates and get there. You're welcome to come visit any time, well, after I text you the room number. Can I get your scroll number?"  
"Sure, why not, you seem like a nice person, and a good friend,"

Cinder shied away from the word friend, "right, well thanks, I'll text you later,"

"You got it, I'll probably be in here for a while, so, see you later I guess,"

"Yeah, I'll be off, finally. Thanks for lending your time for me,"

"No problem, now go get your teammates set up in the dorm," Johnny said to Cinder before she left. Johnny was thinking to himself again later, "_that was weird, who asks a person on a date right after meeting them? I guess I could see it but that was still unexpected. And besides, she really seemed to dislike me calling her a friend, that could mean a few things, most of them aren't really fun possibilities to think about. I hope she's just a bit weird in that sense,"_ Johnny pulled a few books and started reading.

Cinder walked out of her dorm after getting her teammates in there. She stepped into the bathroom and looked into the mirror, thinking to herself, "_dammit! Why do I have to fall for the first cute guy I meet, and he's really cool too. Fuck, I can't let the plan go to shit, but I can't leave him go either. He said he has a date to the dance, that shoots that down any chance of me getting with him now, and maybe involving him. But I could take out this girl, no, I think he should be happy, and if he's happy with her, then so be it. Maybe after the plan takes place I can get the girl killed and not have it pinned on me or seen as a deliberate act of tearing them apart, then I can get myself in his life. What the hell am I thinking? Am I really this obsessed already? Holy shit just stick to the plan, he is not part of it," _Cinder ridiculed herself before leaving the bathroom and heading back to the dorm room to inevitably find a fitful rest.

**AN: Alright, to my favourite part of the story, rewriting some characters that weren't really all that good in the show to being what I hope would be somewhat competent(that's probably wishful thinking though). First rewrite: Cinder, I decided to make her a sort of yandere like character, obsessed with one of the main characters in the story, I couldn't really think of who to make her obsessed with at first, I immediately ruled out Ruby, Yang, and Natalie, because after the events af volume 3, she absolutely hates Ruby, and that will still stand later, and of course Yang is Ruby's sister, which I actually plan to make known to Cinder, and Natalie is with Ruby, and is also one of the people contributing with Ruby in one of the more… depressing scenes in volume 3. Weiss, yeah no, I could kind of see it, but she is a well known figure, and well known to be straight, whether she was or not(she is in this story). Nathan, another well known figure, and also known to really not be that appealing for obsession before now, and besides, I think Nathan would catch on and stop that shit quick. Alice, that one is a no, she's the sister of Pyrrha, and of course Pyrrha has a special role in Cinder's plan. So I came upon Johnny, he's perceptive sure, and smart, but he still wants to find friends wherever he can, so he doesn't really care if the person in question acts really weird around them, and no, I'm not making a plotline where Alice thinks he's cheating on her or something along those lines, as Cinder stated, she wanted Johnny to be happy, and if being with Alice was what made him happy, so be it. I have some special plans for Alice and Pyrrha in the future though. Enough rambling about someone's obsession, I decided to set off some ships right at the starting bit of the dance arc, that being Arkos, Bumblby, JohnnyxAlice, and WeissxNathan. I hope you don't mind me getting things like that started earlier on, because I really just wanted to make a quick set up, get them settled into comfortable relationships, and I shouldn't mention the rest until it happens. I probably should have actually provided a set up for Arkos in earlier chapters, but I wanted to keep them a bit shorter before, like little bite sized pieces, and JNPR kind of bloated volume 1 and 2 in my opinion, at least originally. I know it's no excuse, but I hope you guys at least understand my reasoning, just like Ironwood's actions at the end of volume 7. Quick summary of my opinion on Ironwood's/RWBY's plans is this: they both suck, RWBY doesn't have a plan, and Ironwood's would be doomed to fail, both sides let emotion get the better of them, they could just as easily drag Atlas over to Vacuo to get help from them, and we could get our hands on another relic, the one of destruction, you know, that glowing blue sword. Yeah, I have a seemingly different view to the entire fandom on that, because everyone I've seen was either convinced that RWBY's idea of no leaving anyone behind was better, because it was morally better, or that Ironwood's plan was better, because it was an actual plan and not suicide, while I think that, while leaving people behind sucks, it would be better than staying because if they stay, everyone dies, but if Ironwood's plan goes through, and I assume they launch Atlas to likely the outer atmosphere to avoid the Grimm, saving as many as they can but leaving some behind, everyone dies anyway, because their systems likely rely on dust, and they would no way to get dust from up there. In this scenario, Ironwood is right about one thing, the philosophical points won't matter if Salem wins, but Salem will still kind of win if everyone on Atlas dies in the outer atmosphere or wherever they push Atlas out of the way. Anyway, I've spent pretty much an entire page rambling in an author's note, so I think it might be best I sign off, reviews are appreciated, Raz3r out!**


	6. Pre-Dance Troubles

"Could you put the speaker over there? No, over there, Yang. Do you want the music to echo? You know what? I'll just do it myself," Nathan walked over and picked up the speaker Yang put down with help from his stand, Yang walked off to likely help with actual decorations, but she didn't look happy about it. Nathan was one of the people they originally had helping with the dance, they wanted him to help with the sound system and be DJ, giving him a list of songs for the night, originally it was supposed to be team CFVY helping with set up but their mission was taking longer than expected, he would have much preferred to have Yatsuhashi helping carry some of the heavier things than Yang, she happened to be prone to not listening to people, even if they knew what they were doing. Nathan placed the speaker in the right place and looked over to see what Weiss was doing, she seemed to be asking Ruby about some specific point with decoration, Nathan walked over, overhearing some of the conversation, "-you think the table cloth should be?"

Ruby looked at two sheets intently, then responded, "don't they look the same?"

Weiss gave a frustrated sigh, "why do I even ask you?"

"I don't know, why don't you talk to some of your rich friends who know so much about fine decoration?" Ruby was probably about as frustrated, which surprised Weiss, but the girl in white turned away to end up face to face with Nathan. Weiss immediately pulled up two white sheets and asked, "can you pick a colour out of these two? Everyone else says they look the same,"

Nathan stared at the sheets, then gave his answer, "whoever gave you these sheets ripped you off, they're the same colour exactly,"

Weiss turned the sheets over and looked at them, "you've gotta be kidding me! White it is then," she sighed, walking away. Nathan looked at Ruby, "that's how you talk to 'rich' people. What's got you down?"

Ruby put her head on the table and sighed, "Natalie doesn't want to come to the dance if Blake is there. And I can't convince her otherwise,"

Nathan nearly chuckled at this, thinking, "_well at least trouble with girls isn't exclusive to guys,"_ before asking, "you want me to go talk to her, or get maybe Johnny to talk to-"

"NO! Do not get Johnny involved, I have made that mistake one too many times. That has ended way too many relationships before they could even start. Could you just talk to her?"

"Um, sure, I guess," Nathan was rather shocked hearing the girl's almost hostile response, Ruby was never angry or upset with anything it seemed, sad sure, but this was new. Nathan finished getting the sound system connected, the mic set up, and his scroll connected, then stepped out of the room to find Natalie.

After walking about the campus grounds for a bit, Nathan managed to find Natalie in the training room, wailing on a punching bag, he started the conversation, "hey, how are things going?"

Natalie stopped hitting the bag and waited a few seconds before turning around, "I'm doing okay. Could be better, but what can you do?"

"You could, I don't know, maybe take Ruby to the dance?"

"Wow, really trying hard to be blunt. I'm guessing Ruby told you why I don't want to go?"

"Yeah, and I think it's pretty petty reasoning. I mean, I guess I don't know the feeling of going to school with one of my parent's murderers, but Blake has made it pretty clear that she's changed since then, and demonstrated it too. I must say, you take traumatic events the best out of all of us, turning sadness into hatred and all, but it'd probably be nice to actually just be truly happy for once right?"

"Maybe, but my mind won't be clear until vengeance falls upon the murderers,"

"You know, you're sounding edgier than some of my earlier music, maybe you should actually try moving past these things and start something new, you have the opportunity right here, people to start something with,"

"It's not that simple, I have to fi-"

"Natalie, you're never going to make it out alive if you're always more tense than the former terrorist hiding in plain sight. I guarantee this is going to start affecting your life in negative ways, I don't want to see my partner looking worse than Johnny these days,"

"Speaking of, I wonder why she got you to come talk to me instead of Johnny? Isn't he the one usually trying to get involved in Ruby's life?"

"I guessing it was a combination of me being nearby and asking what's wrong, and not wanting Johnny to ruin the relationship you both have,"

"Ugh, why does she have to be so sweet sometimes? I can't believe she actually thought about how I'd feel even though I told her I wouldn't go to the dance for my personal reasons,"

"Well, maybe you can go with her anyways?" Nathan walked out of the room, but stopped before the door to say one last thing, "if you decide to come, I can take a couple of requests," he walked out, leaving Natalie to her training.

Nathan walked back into the ballroom to see Weiss carrying packages of table cloth, nearly tripping over herself in the process. Nathan jogged up and grabbed half the stack off of her, using his stand to maneuver the half stack to a table. He looked back to see Weiss come up and place the other half beside it,

"Thanks, that was rather close for my liking," Weiss stated,

"No problem, are you ready for the dance?" Nathan asked, curious as ever,

"I would think so, I've got a dress picked out, makeup ready, just waiting for the time,"

"You know, I would always think you look beautiful, with or without makeup,"  
"Are you really trying to flirt with me now, Nathan? We haven't even gone on a date yet,"

"Well, I guess that makes the dance our first one, and considering some people I've seen, flirting before dating isn't exactly abnormal,"

"That's not the point, I don't want to look like a love struck idiot in front of my team,"

Nathan shrunk back a bit, "oh… I-"

Weiss grabbed his hand, "wait, I'm sorry. That came out way worse than I thought it would. Can you please just keep that kind of stuff down until we leave the room?"

"I mean, sure, but it's going to be hard not to compliment you, although we do need to work on you saying things you don't mean,"

"I'm trying, I really am, but it kind of just… happens, I'm sorry if I've hurt you with that,"

"Ah don't worry, I've grown a heart of steel since my combat school days,"

"Your heart isn't made of steel, it isn't even made of ice. I personally admire your ability to wear your emotions on your sleeve,"

"Well, a lot of that comes from my career, when you write songs about your emotions, those emotions become more apparent to the rest of the world,"

"Trying to be deep are we?"

"What? It's just what should be blatantly obvious, are you getting enough sleep?"

"I am, I think,"

"How many hours?"

"About six,"

"That's barely passing off as enough, are you okay?" Nathan was worried, Johnny was rubbing off on him,

"Yes, I'm fine," she didn't sound fine, not even close,

"Snow, you can tell me," he didn't care if it may be prying, he wanted to care for her, and wasn't going to let stubbornness get in the way,

"I'm alright, Nathan, you don't need to bug me about it," a look in her eyes, one that wasn't entirely honest,

"Really? Because it looks like I do. Remember when you told me to talk to someone about your problems? I think it's finally your turn to reciprocate,"

"Why!?" her shout grabbed the attention of the room,

"What? What do you mean, what did I do wrong?" Nathan was almost scared, it broke his heart to see Weiss like this,

"You fell in love with me, that's what you did wrong. You shouldn't love me, you can't love me, and I want to know why you did," Weiss looked absolutely broken, ready to burst into tears,

"What's wrong with you? One day you come to me asking if I'd go to the dance with you, and the next you're saying it's a mistake I fell in love with you? Weiss, I want to love you, I want you, I can't explain it, but I will love you forever,"

"Did you say that to your last girlfriend before she killed herself?" she was cold again, an icy barrier seemed to form around her heart, and Nathan's heart became frostbitten.

He was backing out of the room, saying on last thing, "what the actual fuck is wrong with you?" before turning and running.

**AN: So, that was a thing. I've taken way too long to write the chapters for this story, I'm just kind of having writer's block for these sections, I have a larger idea for sections of the story, but I feel out of ideas for the smaller bits. Tension insues for the relationship of Nathan and Weiss, Weiss saying things she doesn't mean comes back to bite her and Nathan gets hurt, again. Things will get better, I promise, I want everyone together for the big dance. This author's note is much shorter than the other ones I've written for this story, huh. Well, Raz3r out, I guess.**


	7. To Save a Life

**AN: Okay, there's a reason I have the note at the beginning this time. If you take issue with themes of self-harm, suicide, and death-seeking, DON'T READ THIS CHAPTER! These themes are the main focus in this chapter, everything gets a bit more positive later. This has been my message, Raz3r out!**

Nathan slowed down to a walk after running across the campus, there were no tears this time, only a quiet breaking of all the walls holding everything back. All of his thoughts, his actions, his words, they came crumbling down upon him. The depression he had fought so hard to repress the symptoms of came roaring back in full force, and his thoughts only led to his own guilt, "_it was my fault, I shouldn't have pried. I can't believe I was so stupid. She's probably right, it was a mistake to fall for her, but it was a mistake that hurt me, not her. I foolishly thought that I could be a normal person with a normal dream, but I will always be anything but. My scars are too wide for that, the cuts run too deep. I won't ever make it here, look at me, I don't even have my full capabilities, and I don't have the aura to survive a fight with another human with any actual skill. They were all right, I am just a loser pincushion who doesn't belong in the world of fighting against the grimm, one who can't even think for one second what the consequences of his actions will be,"_ the thoughts ran through his head over and over, he eventually found himself in the dorm, looking through his things, before pulling out a knife, the blade covered in rust and dried blood, different from the one he kept on him at all times, it was one he wanted no one else to see. He pulled up the sleeve on his jacket, revealing the hundreds of scars covering his one arm, most weren't self inflicted, coming from battles and spars, but he distinctly remembered 30 that were, about to make that number 31, he remembered something, "_what's going on?" Ben asked, his older brother found the knife, still coated in blood and rust. Nathan looked down, he had no answer, there would be no answer that wouldn't worry his older brother,_

_He soon knelt down to Nathan's level, "are you okay? What's wrong?"_

_Nathan looked up, his eyes met Ben's, the look of a person who cared deeply for those around him, even if the act of kneeling down still caused him extraordinary pain on his remaining leg, he did it if it meant helping someone else. Ben's desire to help everyone and anyone around him is what cost him his leg in the first place, but he didn't seem to care, he still went out and helped people as a huntsman, no matter the cost, no matter the trouble, he always felt that as a person with an advantage over others, he should help the disadvantaged, but Nathan was a case he couldn't help, "everything is what's wrong Ben, I don't see anything good in this world, I can't bring myself to try and care anymore, I just want out,"_

_Ben's eyes widened, he just wrapped his arms around Nathan, holding on for what seemed to be dear life, "Nathan, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've been away so long on these damned missions, I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you. I want you to know that there are those who care, that always care no matter what. How about this, you can come with me the next time I go out to one of the other kingdoms and we go find something good to see, it'll be like a vacation, just you and me, alright?"_

_Nathan hugged his brother back, "thank you, thank you so much,"_

"_There's no need to thank me, I think you deserve it for everything that's happened recently," Ben let go of Nathan, looking at him intently, "can you show me where you keep it?"_

_Nathan nodded, getting up off the bed, heading over to his drawer and pulling the blade out. Ben took it and examined the knife for a time, then placed it on top of the dresser, and telling Nathan, "give me a second, I'll be right back," Nathan nodded, sitting on the bed and waiting. Ben came back a minute later with a thick sheet of wood that seemed to have a target painted on it, a hammer and some nails. He placed the board up against a wall that had nothing on it and hammered it in, then picking up the knife, "now, Nathan, I'm going to show you something, pay attention," Nathan nodded, Ben held the knife by the blade and positioned it behind his head, then threw it at the target, hitting dead center. Ben walked over and pulled the blade out of the target, then handed it to Nathan, giving him specific instructions, "whenever you feel like cutting yourself again, just throw the knife at the target, it doesn't need to be accurate, just throw the knife and watch it hit the board," Nathan nodded, Ben continued, "in turn for this, I want you to never physically cut yourself again, okay? It hurts more than just you," Nathan nodded again, watching Ben leave the room, Nathan wondered where he got the board from, but it wasn't important, Nathan took the knife and threw it, hitting the board, but missing the target._

Nathan had decided to take a trip down memory lane, remembering some of the better moments of his life, _it was a cold forest, Nathan always liked to come here, it was an isolated place where he could practice with his dagger and pistol in peace against fairly weak beowolves. There had been a strange spike in their numbers in the area recently, and Nathan wanted to check it out, walking just outside of Mantle and wandering, hoping to find some of the creatures to kill, the same creatures that had taken his mother years before. She was a warrior, and one with strange abilities at that, she always seemed to make the cold inviting and nice, as she seemed to be the embodiment of the cold, a physical manifestation of the cold itself that cared about people. Everyone else called her something along the lines of the "Winter Maiden" but Nathan didn't really worry about that, what mattered to him now was that she was gone, and not coming back. The beowolves started coming from the trees, Nathan prepared his dagger and pistol, firing the first few shots and taking down as many as he could from a range, the closer they got, the more ready Nathan was with his knife, until the moment came where he had to start slicing. There was an increase in beowolves this time around, but he never noticed until he found himself surrounded, looking like he had no option left but to run, Nathan propelled himself up using his stand, then landing outside of the pack of beowolves ready to tear him apart. His brother first taught him how to properly stand jump years back, but it took him a while to get used to being able to jump so high. Nathan decided to run from the pack of wolves, and to lose them before heading back to the kingdom. The pack easily kept track and were gaining on him, he wouldn't make it this time, maybe that was a good thing, he wouldn't know. One of the wolves managed to get close enough to slice his arm open, he quickly swatted it away with his knife, but that wouldn't deter the rest of the pack. He was running and losing blood now, not a good combination, he was also tiring out, his legs beginning to fail him. He soon tripped and fell, and accepted his fate, waiting for a death that never came. He looked up to find a woman standing in front of him, slicing down beowolves with a longsword. The pack soon dissipated and the woman turned to face Nathan, "what are you doing here child?" she asked, a clear disappointment on her face,_

_Nathan looked up at a woman who seemed to define elegance, snow white hair, slim physique, and a stern voice on top of it, he collected his thoughts for a second then answered, "I was training, what of it?"_

"_You shouldn't be training out here, it's too dangerous, you'll get yourself killed,"_

"_Who says I'm not looking for that?" Nathan shot back, not thinking about what he actually said,_

_The woman leaned down, "are you alright?"_

_Nathan turned away, "I'm fine, I just want to get back home. I can do that by myself now though, thanks for helping me out,"_

"_No, I'm serious, are you okay? Do you want me to accompany you?"_

"_I'm fine, I told you, just let me be,"_

"_Fuck it, I know your not alright, I already saw the cut on your arm, and I'm the only other person I know that's been actively looking for something to kill them, so let's head back to the kingdom together, okay? What's your name?"_

_Nathan turned towards the woman again, "Nathan, you?"_

"_I'm Winter, nice to meet you, now let's get going," she got up and waited for Nathan to get moving, he tried to get up using his cut arm, but it stung like hell, and he fell back down into the snow. Winter leaned down and offered her hand, which Nathan gladly took, the two started walking the long trek back home._

_Whilst walking down the forest path, the two were completely silent, it wasn't much of a comfortable silence, as they desperately wanted to keep some conversation, but neither were really talkative people. Winter tried something though, "hey, what's your home life like?"_

_Nathan walked and talked, "well, it's pretty good all things considered. My father's a good person, and my brother is a friggin paragon whenever he's around, it almost gets frustrating sometimes, but he somehow knows how to not push it too far all the time. It's too bad dad has to work all the time and my brother is a huntsman, usually out on missions for days or weeks at a time,"_

"_What does your father do?"_

"_He runs like, two companies on his own. If I remember correctly, Darkford Arms and Hope Cafe, both generating massive amounts of income that could get us up into Atlas itself easily, but we never did, and I liked it that way, we were always closer to the people of Mantle, trying to help their plight the best we could. Dad also has a seat on this council thing too, apparently they're supposed to run the kingdom. People always seem to look inspired when they see the man, but the public are the ones who get to see him the most,"_

"_Wait, are you a Darkford?"_

"_Yeah, you've heard of us?"_

"_Oh gods, my father hates your family, it's unbelievable how much he could hate that one person, Voltaire, if I remember correctly. To be honest I became a huntress to avoid the old man myself, he's so bitter and spiteful. Sporting a healthy hatred for faunus as well,"_

"_Hm, a lot of people are like that up in Atlas from what I hear, we're supposedly not very popular with the elites,"_

"_That is a severe understatement, but hey, it's unnecessary for you to get all worked up about it, I imagine plenty of people in Mantle hate your family's stance on faunus rights,"_

"_Yeah, that unfortunately bleeds off to their kids attending combat school, and then those kids find out you're a Darkford, and you suddenly become a pincushion for the hatred of those kids. There were very few people who don't care about my name in that place, and that number keeps dwindling every day, there's a reason I go out here to train against beowolves instead of sparring with other kids my age, I have no one to train with, even the people who actually care about me won't spar because they're afraid of hurting me due to my lack of aura,"_

"_Well, relax a bit, you don't need to be perfect to be a huntsman, we all have our flaws,"_

"_Yeah, my brother's a living representation of that,"_

"_What do you mean? I thought you said he was a good person,"_

"_Mentally and emotionally yes, but he's been missing a leg for a few years now, replaced with a prosthetic that, while he can technically walk on it, he needs a cane to do so. It hinders him in a fight a lot,"_

"_Oh, I see. I think we're coming upon the wall, how about I walk you home?"_

"_Sure, why not? You need to pass by our place to get to a station taking people to Atlas anyways. Sounds like a plan," the two walked towards the gate leading into Mantle, heading inside the kingdom._

_Walking up the front steps, Winter knocked on the door. A man looking about in his late thirties answered, "hello, what's up?"_

_Winter spoke, "I found Nathan out in the forest. Are you his father or his brother?"_

"_Heh, Benjamin Darkford, his older brother. I get mixed up as his father all the time, don't worry about it. How about you both come inside?"_

_Winter looked worried, "no thanks I should get home,"_

"_Please, I insist. I don't see a reason why you can't,"_

_Winter gave a defeated sigh, "fine, but I won't be around long,"_

_Ben nodded, motioning the both of them inside, then pulled Nathan off to the side, checking his arm, then wiping it down with water and wrapped it in a bandage, "jeez Nathan, if you're going to keep going out there you need to be more careful, you could die out there,"_

_Winter opened her mouth to comment, but decided against it, instead explaining everything else, "I found him about to be torn to shreds by a pack of beowolves, he could do to at least be aware of the changes in grimm behaviour, my job was to take out that pack he ran into, and now that's taken care of. He did do a good job of thinning it out before I got there though, I figured about 20 he killed before I got there out of the presumed 60 of them, for his weapons of choice it is quite impressive,"_

_Ben looked over, "he has always been exceptionally skilled with conventional weapons and agility in combat, but he still has to improve with his semblance. Would you like some coffee while you're here?"_

_Winter shook her head, "no thank you, I would personally prefer to sleep when I get home,"_

"_No problem, you want to stay for supper? I'm making it soon,"_

"_Sure, I haven't had a proper home cooked meal in a while," Ben and Nathan shared a questioning look at this, but they decided not to question it. Ben left to make supper and Nathan and Winter just sat. Voltaire had to stay at the office that day, so they ate without him. After that day Winter kept showing up occasionally, in a different state of tiredness each time, it got to the point where it felt natural when Winter stayed and slept on the couch overnight. She and Ben got along the best, then they started dating, then Ben had Winter move into the house with them when she came and said her parents disowned her and managed to force every landlord in the kingdom to keep her out. They got married a couple years later, but no one from Winter's family was invited, they never even knew her last name, Winter was worried they would hate her if she said, and they respected her wishes. _

Now it was Ben and Winter Darkford living in the house. Nathan looked back at the fond memories, every day after he met Winter was better than the last, until now. He wished he had her advice for this situation, or Ben's for that matter. He decided to summon his courage and call Ben, hoping he wasn't on a mission at the time, the scroll rang, and rang, and rang, then his voicemail, "hey, this is Benjamin Darkford, if you're hearing this I'm probably out on a mission, so leave a message or call me back later, thanks!"

Nathan hung up, "damn, I'll try Winter,"

The phone rang, then another voicemail, "hello, I'm probably out on the job right now, so leave a message or call me back later, thank you,"

Nathan hung up, this was the first time he felt well and truly alone, he huddled up and tears started welling in his eyes, he never truly had no one to talk to before.

Weiss sat in the corner of the ballroom with her knees hugged to her chest, everyone else willfully ignored her, "_as they should," _she thought, "_what kind of person am I anyway? Cold, abusive, it was right for him to leave before I hurt him even more. A person like me doesn't deserve him. I'm too horrible, too cold of a heart, why did I even try? Why do I still try at all? Everyone would be better off without me anyways,"_ she got up and left the room.

The roof entrance was something she never thought she'd see, but here she was. Opening the door and stepping out onto the roof, the breeze hit her face, but it meant nothing to her, nothing would soon. Stepping out to the ledge, she hesitated, just long enough for a pair of stiff arms to wrap around her and a familiar voice, "I still care, don't do it," as a growing wet spot formed on her back.

"_What are the chances the pain will ever end?" _Nathan questioned himself, he always tried to be more optimistic about the future recently, but that was shattered by now. He was sitting on his bed, thinking about too much, "_Weiss clearly doesn't care, who can honestly say they care about a whiny asshole like me? Maybe it would be better to cut it off here, my emotions are too much,"_ Nathan got up, he knew the destination of his journey already, that journey was ending here. He stepped out of the dorm and walked down the hall, his steps getting shakier and shakier the closer he got to his destination, the stairs were hard to walk up at this point, but he made it up. The door was already open, revealing Weiss to already be standing on the edge, something snapped in him. He rushed up to Weiss as fast as possible, tripping down and ending up on a knee hugging her back, he spoke, "I still care, don't do it," tears ran from his eyes as they stood on the roof, Weiss asked one question again, "why? Why do you still care?"

Nathan responded, almost a cry for her, "because no one deserves to go like this, not you, not anyone,"

"But I do deserve it Nathan, you refuse to accept that, you're better off letting me go,"

"Those words. She said those exact same ones, and I did. Never again, I can't let someone else I care about so much go like this again,"

Weiss was crying at this point, he wasn't going to move, "but you should, I shouldn't be worth anything more than a piece of shit on your shoe at this point. It'll be better when I'm gone,"

"It won't be, I know it. You may think that right now but you have no idea what I'd feel in the future. I would be the one standing up here," Weiss finally stepped back and Nathan stood up, turned her around and trapped her in a hug, "please, don't leave like this,"

Weiss wrapped her arms around Nathan and cried into his shoulder, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Please don't let me go,"

Nathan looked at the girl he had in his arms, he was crying as well, "I won't, not now, not ever. I won't watch you fall like this," they stood on the roof crying in each other's arms for a while longer, then finally separated once their tears were spent. Nathan sat down on the edge, then got up, and asked Weiss, "can you wait a second?"

Weiss didn't know how to respond, something in her head kept telling her, "_he's going to ditch you, like he should, he just wanted to stop you from jumping,"_ but something else told her it wasn't true, the look in his eyes, there always seemed to be a spark of joy in them, it dimmed a little, but it was still there. Weiss nodded, Nathan jogged into the building, failing to close the door behind him. Weiss couldn't care less, she felt like she was cared about, for the first time in years, she felt like someone actually gave a damn about her existence as a person, she almost ruined that, it was a miracle Nathan could feel anything for her after the insult in the ballroom, "_it was incredibly insensitive and mean to say something like that, obviously, but how can I never say something like that again? How do I stop this habit? This plague that removed me from any kind of social interaction? I don't think I can on my own,"_ before she knew it, Nathan was back, this time he brought a guitar with him, an old acoustic that seemed like it was the first instrument he ever owned, he sat down beside Weiss on the edge, then made sure it was tuned, the tone was pleasant to the ear. Nathan started playing a song, surprisingly not one of his own,

"This world will never be,

what I expected,

And if I don't belong,

Who would've guessed it?

I will not leave alone,

everything that I own,

To make you feel like it's not too late,

It's never too late.

Even if I say 'it will be alright',

Still I hear you say you want to end your life,

Now and again we try,

to just stay alive,

Maybe we'll turn it around 'cause it's not too late,

It's never too late.

No one will ever see,

this side reflected,

And if there's something wrong,

Who would have guessed it?

And I have left alone,

everything that I own,

To make you feel like it's not too late,

It's never too late.

Even if I say, 'it'll be alright,'

Still I hear you say you want to end your life

Now and again we try,

to just stay alive,

Maybe we'll turn it around 'cause it's not too late,

It's never too late.

The world we knew,

Won't come back,

The time we lost,

Can't get back,

The life we had,

Won't be ours again.

This world will never be,

What I expected,

And if I don't belong,

Even if I say, 'it'll be alright',

Still I hear you say you want to end your life,

Now and again we try,

To just stay alive,

Maybe we'll turn it around 'cause it's not too late,

It's never too late,

Maybe we'll turn it around 'cause it's not too late,

It's never too late.

It's not too late,

It's never too late," he played a coupled more notes and let the last chord ring out into the night, Weiss looked at Nathan staring out into the night sky, trying to think of something to say, she just tried to make a simple observation instead, "I didn't know you were left-handed,"

Nathan put the guitar down behind him, thought for a moment, then started laughing, "you know, I think you might be the first other than the people on my team to notice. Guess it just doesn't come up. Are you feeling better?"

"A bit, how about we stay here for a while though. We should probably think about how we're going to move forward,"

Nathan grinned, "eh, thinking ahead was never really my forte. Besides, I've gotten this far living one day at a time, I think we'll make it if we keep doing that,"

"Normally I'd be against that, but maybe I have been thinking too far into the future. I guess we'll get through today, and the next day after," Weiss rested her head on Nathan's shoulder, "as long as we're together."

**AN: And with that, things are getting better, for now. Sorry about not updating, I've just been getting through some personal problems recently, the quarantine has probably brought out the worst in me. At one point while writing this I thought this would be the last chapter I write and would have laid out the rest of the story, concluding with a final send-off, I was planning to commit suicide. But I've gotten better and been able to finish this chapter off before getting to the actual dance, which is next chapter. I think this one was significantly darker than the others before the end of volume three and volume four because of my mental state during the writing, but don't worry, I'm fine now and should be able to update more regularly, I'll see you all soon. Raz3r out!**

**PS: I've also spent time starting a ton of stories, let me know if you want to read them!**


	8. Conspiratorial Fun

The ballroom was lit up and people were entering the building. Amongst those attending were the members of Teams RWBY, JNPR, JANN, and SLVR. What surprised people the most were the couples, there were the pairs people were expecting, no one was surprised when Johnny and Alice walked in with linked arms, but Yang and Blake seemed to turn some heads, and it surprised almost everyone when Weiss entered the building by herself. Ruby had managed to get Natalie to come with her, and the taller woman wore a suit, which garnered some questioning looks from everyone, her answer was, "I hate wearing dresses, they're friggin' uncomfortable, and there's almost no dresses in my size," which got a few chuckles from anyone she explained it to. Before everyone got lost in the crowd Ruby leaned over to Weiss and asked quietly, "are you and Nathan still together… sorry, I saw you walking in alone and assumed-"

"It's fine, Nathan had to come here a while ago to deal with the music, I'm still here with him,"

"Oh! That's good, try to have some fun, eh Weiss?"

Weiss tilted her head, "_was she actually paying attention to me?"_ "don't worry, it's what we're here for," Ruby walked off to find Natalie, Weiss immediately headed towards the stage, only to find Nathan sitting in one of the chairs on the side looking rather pleased with himself. Weiss walked up to him, "what are you so pleased by?"

Nathan looked up, "let's see, I have a date with the hottest girl in the school, I get to listen to great music during that date, I get to dance with said girl to the awesome music. I'd say that's reason enough,"

Weiss stood in silence, before awkwardly responding, "you really think I'm the hottest girl here?"

"Well, yeah. I'd say so at least," Nathan stood up, offering his hand, "now are you ready to have some fun?"

"Of course," Weiss took Nathan's hand as they left for the dance floor.

Johnny and Alice were already out on the floor, dancing to the music. Alice's expression showed curiosity, "I didn't know you could dance,"

Johnny chuckled a bit, "well, Dad wanted me to 'continue his legacy of stealing hearts' as he put it, which basically meant learning skills that would easily woo girls, or guys if I happened to be into that," Alice cringed, Johnny grinned, "it wasn't what you're probably thinking, it was mostly basic manners, polite speaking, keeping cool in a bad situation, and basic dance lessons, which is why I'm able to dance out here. He told me that the rest was about my own confidence, and whether or not the girl I'm trying to ask out sees me as attractive, in their own way. I never really used those tactics though, I was never really interested in dating too much before,"

Alice looked confused, "if you aren't so interested in dating, then why come to the dance with me as your date?"

Johnny looked to the side a bit, blushing, "well, that's because you're the first person I really liked that way, it's we-" they were interrupted when someone bumped into Johnny, who was then shoved forward, hitting Alice, who would have fallen if Johnny didn't instantly get an iron grip on their positions. They stood awkwardly tilted for a few seconds before Johnny loosened up and slowly brought them back to standing straight, turning around to see who bumped into them, it happened to be that the couple who bumped into them stopped dancing to make sure they were alright, one of them speaking, "I'm sorry, we didn't see you… Johnny! How've you been?"

Johnny responded quickly, "I've been doing well enough. This is Alice, the one who invited me to the dance," he looked over at the other boy, "I told you you'd be able to find a date to the dance, are you doing well?"

"Yes, I'm doing alright, and Alice, was it? As in Alice Nikos?"

Alice looked off to the side a bit, "yeah, that's me, Pyrrha's younger sister,"

Cinder immediately stuck out her hand, "I can't believe I finally get to meet you! Is your semblance really as cool as people say it is? Are you still looking to win the next combat tournament in Mistral when we're out of here?-" Cinder kept asking questions and Alice's confusion kept growing, Johnny scooted over to Cinder's apparent date to the dance, asking him, "so, how are thing's going for you?"

"Eh, been better, I'm Mercury, by the way, Mercury Black," he stuck out his hand,

Johnny shook it, "Johnny Swift, so how long have you two known each other?"

"A few years now, I'm still a bit surprised she asked me to the dance to be honest. How about you?"

"I met Alice during Beacon initiation, so we kinda ended up together through random chance. How are you feeling about the Vytal Festival coming up soon?"

"I have no doubt we're gonna dominate the competition,"

"Really, now? Some teams are probably going to surprise the hell out of you then, well, I think our dates have finally stopped babbling on about Alice, talk later?"  
"Sure, see you around," Mercury walked over to Cinder, Alice walked over to Johnny, before saying, "I think I'm gonna stop dancing, I need some time to process this,"

"What happened? What did she say?" Johnny followed her,

"Some really weird shit, I just don't get it," Alice sat down on one of the chairs on the side of the ballroom, Johnny sat beside her, "well, keeping silent about it isn't exactly going to help you, so if you'd tell me that'd be nice, although if you're no comfortable I understand, Cinder is a bit odd,"

"That's an understatement. It wasn't anything really bad, it was just weird, she was completely fangirling over me, usually they're going to me to try and get a connection to Pyrrha, but that was just surreal. Do you think this has anything to do with me beating Pyrrha in a spar?"  
"Possibly, but hey, you've got fans, that certainly is something,"

"Yeah, but I think I understand what Pyrrha means by overly obsessive fans now, it was almost like she was stalking me or something, she definitely gives off a bad vibe on top of that, and my gut feelings haven't been inaccurate yet,"

"Alright, maybe we should keep an eye on her, see if she does anything suspicious, she definitely seemed weird and obsessive when I first met her a couple days ago. But for now, let's try and forget about that and enjoy ourselves,"

"Actually, I think I want to go back to the dorm, that encounter kinda sucked all the fun out of this whole 'dance' thing,"

"Sure, let's get going then," Johnny and Alice stepped out of the building, heading back to the dorm room.

Sylvia sat on a chair in the ballroom, Sun's head resting on her shoulder. The monkey faunus was sleeping, he had gotten pretty tired, not so much from the dancing, more just tired in general. Sylvia promised to wake him if the dance ended before he got up himself. She was silently reading a book on her scroll when someone shuffled over to them, Sylvia looked up to find a dejected looking Regalia, something that immediately alerted her, as the other girl usually avoided showing any emotion at all. Sylvia asked her quietly, "is something wrong?"

Regalia, noticing that Sun was sleeping, responded just as quietly, "yes,"

Sylvia gestured to the empty seat on the other side of her, "do you want to tell me what it is?"

Regalia sat down, pulling one knee up by her chest, "Neptune. I wanted to ask him to the dance, but I overheard him talking about asking Weiss,"

Sylvia nodded, "I see, well, Neptune came alone, he looked pretty bad too, it must've been one hell of a rejection to put him in a foul mood. You should go talk to him, at least ask if he's alright. Maybe you've still got a chance,"

"Thanks, I'll do that, but I'm gonna grab a drink first," Regalia got up and walked over to the punch bowl, grabbing a glass and filling it about half full, drinking it in one gulp, then walking around the crowd to get to Neptune on the other side of the room, walking up to the frowning blue-haired mess, he was even missing his goggles, Regalia greeted him, "hey, Neptune,"

Neptune looked over, barely registering her presence, "hm? Oh, hey Regalia,"

"Are you… doing okay?"

"I uh… I- can we talk about this somewhere else?"

"Yeah, sure," the two walked off, Sylvia smiled from a distance, "_I guess my work here is done for now, if only it were that simple all the time."_

Natalie and Ruby were dancing closer to the entrance than the others, Natalie preferring to be on the safer side if something went wrong. After a few songs Natalie noticed something outside, squinting to try and get a better view, Ruby asked her, "is something wrong?"

Natalie looked down at the shorter girl, "I see something outside heading towards the CCT, I think we should check it out,"

"Are you sure? I mean, with the way things have been we can't be sure if we're seeing things,"

"Yeah, but even if I'm wrong, we'll get some time alone," Natalie smirked, not fully realizing what she implied,

Ruby giggled, "alright, then we should get going now,"

They made their way off the dance floor and out through the entrance. No one seemed to notice their disappearance from the dance. They made their way to the CCT, walking down the roads, being unable to run due to Ruby wearing high heels. As they came to the entrance, they noticed bodies strewn about the place, military soldiers from Atlas standing as guards. Natalie walked up to one and felt their neck for a pulse, luckily enough one was there, "I think they're just knocked out," Natalie stated, trying to ease Ruby's worries a bit. Natalie carefully walked up to the entrance to the tower, motioning for Ruby to get by her side, once the girl in red caught up Natalie told her the plan, "Ruby, I want you to go back and get help,"

Ruby protested, "but you might need help fighting whoever's in there,"

"Ruby, no offense, but I don't think you'll be much help in high heels, you barely seem to be able to walk in them,"

"Fine, but I'm coming back as soon as I get backup," Ruby stated, then she kissed Natalie quickly before leaving. Natalie stood for a bit, processing what happened, it was the first time they kissed, ever, it was a surprise to be sure, but a good one. She pulled out her scroll and punched in coordinates for her weapon locker. The rocket-powered locker came down in front of her, opening up to reveal her Slice of Thunder, she took out the axe and took off her suit jacket and bowtie, leaving a button-up white shirt on to fight in as she placed the other articles of clothing in the locker.

Entering the building, there were more guards knocked out, or at least that was the hope, except for one who came out and pointed a gun at the back of her head. She heard the loading a shell into a shotgun and dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding the blast. She turned to look at the shooter, the soldier still had his gun pointed at the place where Natalie was standing, before he let the gun fall loosely to his side. His helmet was off, revealing a familiar face, "Mikal?"

The soldier finally turned to face her, "I- I- I- I- I don't know what happened, someone came by and just… wiped us all out,"

Natalie frowned, "well I'm going up to check it out, you coming with?"

Mikal stepped up, "yeah, I guess I will. You'll need help to even try and take on… whoever the fuck that was," Natalie nodded in response, heading over to the elevator, making sure not to step on the bodies on the ground. She waited for the soldier in the elevator, starting it as soon as he was in. The ride to the top was short and silent, there was no need for conversation with the mission they were on. Once at the top the doors opened, letting Natalie step out into the communications deck, a room filled with terminals meant to call people across Remnant. A woman stepped out from behind a terminal, she wore gray jumpsuit looking apparel with a mask. Natalie rested her axe on her shoulder, "it's not a masquerade, drop the mask,"

The woman silently swiped her hand across the air, seeming to summon glass, she sent it forward, Natalie jumped over the shards, landing on her feet with her axe ready, "I'm guessing you refuse," Natalie quipped, before dodging more glass. Discreetly, Mikal stepped around to the side of the woman and aimed his weapon. The blast from the shotgun sent the woman reeling for a few seconds, before recovering and attempting to focus on both of her enemies, one only fighting from close range and one exclusively at mid-range. Natalie couldn't fire her ranged attacks in the communications deck unless she wanted to destroy terminals in the collateral damage, bringing an explosive weapon here was a mistake, but the woman didn't seem to be able to fight that well in close range, Natalie swung longer than her usual strikes, which seemed to be working against the woman who refused to use a short ranged weapon, instead favoring summoning shards of glass. The ding of the elevator caught everyone's attention. When the door opened, relief washed over Natalie's face as she saw Ruby, along with a man in an Atlesian uniform. Mikal immediately stood in a straight position, bringing his arm up to his brow, "General Ironwood, sir!"

The man raised his hand, "at ease soldier, are you two alright?"

Ruby ran up and wrapped her arms around Natalie in a crushing hug before she could respond, only a small squeaked, "yes," could come out,

The man, now known as Ironwood, chuckled, "good to know. You did good today, both of you. Sergeant Rook, come with me to the airship, I want to know the details about what happened tonight. You two, the huntresses in training, go back to Beacon and get some rest, we'll discuss this in the morning," Ironwood turned and left, leaving the other three in the room themselves. Ruby looked up at Natalie, "I'm so glad you're okay!"

Natalie grinned, "eh, I wasn't even scared, maybe next time you should come to a dance in sneakers,"

"Yeah, I definitely will, I'm not leaving you alone like that again!"

Mikal interjected, "well, it was nice seeing you both again, I'll get going, and you two should as well," he then left, leaving Natalie and Ruby alone in the room. Ruby looked over Natalie and asked, "what happened to the rest of your suit?"

"I put it in my weapon locker, I'm gonna pick it up on the way out, then send it back,"

"Oh, in that case let's get going,"

"Sure. I just wonder how my team is going to react," Natalie mumbled the last part under her breath. The both of them left the building for their dorms.


	9. Double Team Outing

"From what we know, there was a woman who knocked out the guards at the CCT, then you showed up, followed her to the top and fought her, then we arrived, is that correct?" Ozpin asked,

Natalie thought for a second, then responded, "that's about it. If anything else happened I wasn't around for it," the room fell silent. Natalie was being questioned by Ironwood and Ozpin in Ozpin's office. Ironwood asked her, "was there any defining features about this woman, eye colour, hair colour, hair length, height, something we can identify her with?"

Natalie looked him in the eye, "gold eyes, black hair about shoulder length, and I couldn't get a good bead on her height, we were in the middle of a fight,"

Ironwood was surprised by her cold tone, "alright, thank you. Head back down to class,"

Natalie got up, waving, "no problem, see ya,"

She got in the elevator that went down to the regular campus, taking note of a button for a level below the basement labelled V, it had a keyhole beside it, so Natalie couldn't explore anyways. She got down and into the dorms when an announcement came over the loudspeaker, "would all first year students report to the amphitheater," Natalie panicked a bit, "_shit, I forgot! We have our first mission today!"_ she ran down the halls to retrieve her weapon, then ran to the amphitheater.

The rest of JANN had already beat her to the amphitheater and were waiting by RWBY and JNPR for her, once she took her place Ozpin started a speech, "today we stand together, united. Mistral, Atlas, Vacuo, Vale. The four kingdoms of Remnant. On this day 80 years ago, the largest war in recorded history came to an end. It was a war of ignorance, of greed, and of oppression. A war that was about much more than where borders fell or who traded with whom, but about the very idea of individualism itself. We fought for countless reasons, one of which being the destruction of all forms of art and self expression, and as you are well aware that was something many could not stand for. As a result, those who opposed this tyranny began naming their children after one of the core aspects of art itself, colour. It was their way to demonstrate that not only they would refuse to tolerate this oppression, but that neither would the generations to come, and it is a trend that is held to this very day. We encourage individuality, expression, and unity, through diversity. As I have said, today we stand together, united, but this bond cannot exist without effort, which is why today, as the rest of the world celebrates peace, huntsmen and huntresses will work to uphold it. As first year students, you will be tasked with shadowing a professional huntsman or huntress on a mission. Some of you may be taken out of the kingdom for several days, some of you may work within the walls for the rest of the week, but no matter which path you choose, remember to be safe, remember your training, and remember to do your very best," there was applause as Ozpin left the stage. Ruby turned to her team and JANN decided to listen in for a good second, "I have a plan. Well, actually Natalie came up with the plan whilst walking back to our dorms, but anyways, the police are all over town, right?"

The team responded, "right,"

"And there wouldn't be anywhere inside the kingdom they could hide something like Atlas tech right?"

"Right,"

"So we were thinking, 'where could they possibly be otherwise?' until Natalie got this shocked look on her face and said Mountain Glenn, and we realized that the abandoned area would be the perfect place for hiding stuff you don't want others to find,"

Weiss looked unamused, "where are you going with this?"

"I was thinking we'd take a mission in Mountain Glenn, and look for wherever they could be hiding,"

Yang grinned, "that's perfect, we'll follow by day and give em the slip at night,"

Weiss stated tiredly, "one problem, which quadrant is Mountain Glenn in?"

Natalie cut in, "it's in quadrant 5, we'll see you around,"

Ruby waved, "thanks, see ya later!"

JANN was looking for a good mission to get them through the week, but nothing looked even remotely interesting. Johnny wanted to go to Mountain Glenn but they had already agreed RWBY would be heading on that mission. They kept looking until a high pitched beep rang out from a terminal beside them. Looking over, it revealed RWBY being unable to take a mission, Johnny walked over, "having issues?"

Ruby sighed, "we can't get a mission in Mountain Glenn, it says it's unavailable to first years,"

Johnny laughed, "maybe you could try mailing yourselves there,"

A voice came from out of nowhere, "the area was deemed too dangerous for first year students. Both of your teams seem rather interested in going to that region, one can only wonder why?"

Ruby looked at Ozpin, "well, uh, we-"

"I'm sure you have your reasons, but we can't send in a first year team to that area,"

Johnny joined the conversation, "why not two?"

Ozpin looked confused, "what do you mean?"

Johnny explained further, "well, if it's too dangerous for one first year team, maybe two of them could wipe the floor out,"

"Are you suggesting your team and Team RWBY take the mission together?"

"That was the plan,"

Ozpin chuckled, "well, I suppose it couldn't hurt if you're so enthusiastic about it. Besides, something tells me at least one of you would try to get there no matter which mission you chose, so instead of waiting for you to inevitably break the rules, why don't we just bend them a bit,"

He pressed a couple buttons on his tablet, then the board read that the two teams accepted the mission, Johnny grinned, "we won't let you down!"

Ozpin chuckled again, "I'm sure you won't, but heed this, teamwork and persistence have gotten you far, but the things outside the walls will not care, stay close to your huntsman at all times, and do exactly as he says. He will be leading you on this mission, and he can have you sent back to Beacon if he finds your skills unsatisfactory. Good luck."

The two teams stepped outside to the air platform, Yang made a comment on Ozpin's talk, "that wasn't exactly uplifting,"

Blake deadpanned, "but it was the truth,"

Johnny stepped up, "we'll be fine it's n-"

They were interrupted by another student, "Team CFVY's back!"

Everyone looked over to the team coming from an airpad, Natalie jogged up to them, "Velvet! What happened out there?"

Velvet looked over, a look of despair over her face, "nothing happened, but there were just so many… you should be fine though, you're shadowing a professional. I've gotta go, stay safe out there," Velvet ran off to catch up with her team, Natalie waved. The rest of her team and RWBY joined Natalie again, Johnny asking, "what'd she say?"

Natalie nearly jumped, as if he was threatening her, before calming down a bit, "there was a lot of Grimm apparently. We should probably be careful, we aren't only going against a gang of criminals,"

Ruby stepped forward, "then we should stick together,"

Weiss cut in, "who? All of us or just you and Natalie?"

Ruby grinned, "all of us silly, and besides, you'd probably take a chance to get more alone time with Nathan anyways,"

Weiss snapped back, "I wouldn't do that in the middle of a mission dolt!"

Alice stepped in, "hey, relax. We can all have some alone time as separate couples after the mission. I say we get going before-" "hurry up ladies and gentlemen, we are currently four minutes late!" "that. Come on, the doctor's waiting on us," Alice went on ahead. The huntsman they were following was Oobleck, their history teacher, and Alice's favourite teacher, for nothing other than managing to keep her awake in class unlike the other teachers with his insanely fast speaking and teaching style, most others got lost on what he was saying, but Alice always seemed to have a quick ear. The rest of her team and RWBY chased after her, catching up when she reached the airship Oobleck was on. Oobleck called out, "finally! Are you all ready to go?"

Johnny answered, "I think so, right everybody?"

He got positive responses from everyone on both teams. Oobleck ushered them onto the airship.

**AN: A nice quick chapter to set up the next arc, god I feel like it was so long ago that I made short and quick to write chapters, but in reality this is only my third story not counting the one-shot I've written. Maybe it's because I took so long to write one chapter that it was an extremely long time since I made short chapters that were at the most like 800-900 words long, though the longest chapter in my first story was almost 3000 words long. Sorry, I'm rambling, I'll get back to work on writing more of this story instead of talking about the past. Raz3r out!**


	10. Mountain Glenn Train Line

They were on the airship nearing their destination, Johnny asked Oobleck, "what's the plan doc?"

The doctor responded with enthusiasm, "straight to the point, I like it. This mission has now become a reconnaissance mission, we are to survey the area for any criminal activity,"

"_So we finally get to investigate within the bounds of the school, that's good," _Johnny thought. The rest of the ride was silent, it was almost uncomfortable until they landed.

Team JNPR stepped out of the building, Nora whined, "they didn't even wait to say goodbye,"

"They probably had to go right away," Jaune explained, "we've gotta get ready for our mission in the morning anyway, let's get going," JNPR left the airship platform, heading for their dorm.

Two teams walked out onto the platform next, SLVR and SNNN. Sylvia leaned up and kissed Sun on the cheek before SLVR walked out to an airship waiting for them to take them somewhere outside the city walls. Neptune snarked, "you two need to get a room already,"

Sun joked back, "if I could I would, but then who else would keep you from leading on every girl in Haven?"

Neptune chuckled before turning around, "we should get going before you decide to follow her,"

"Yeah, we've got some detective work to do anyways."

The team of 8 and their lead huntsman jumped off the airship and landed on the edge of the old city, weapons drawn. They waited for a moment, then holstered their weapons. Oobleck turned to the rest of them, "ladies and gentlemen, you still may be students but your first mission as huntsman and huntresses has begun, from this moment forward, you need to do exactly as I say, understand?" he then turned to Ruby and Nathan, "the luggage will not be necessary, you can leave your bags here,"

Nathan spoke first, "my apologies but I cannot leave my medical equipment behind, I do not have an aura and I've had enough bad experiences from that leading to more than enough scars for three lifetimes,"

Oobleck seemed to scrutinize his statement before judging, "are you saying you haven't unlocked your aura yet?"

Nathan sighed, frustrated at having to explain every time, "no, I do not, and cannot physically have an aura due to my semblance, it's why I was never selected for spars in combat class. That is why my pack of medical supplies is necessary," he gestured to the pouch slung over his shoulder hanging on his side,

Oobleck nodded, then turned to Ruby, "alright, you can leave your bag here then, we'll pick it up when we're done here,"

Ruby tried to come up with a response then a dog peered its head through the bag and barked, Ruby turned to it and whispered, "get back in the bag,"

Oobleck stared blankly, "we're here, to investigate an abandoned urban jungle teeming with death and hostility, and you brought… a dog?"

Ruby stammered out, "I uh-"

Oobleck interrupted her, "genius!" then rushed by, grabbing the dog from Ruby's bag, he then started talking about something to do with canine's history as hunting animals or something along the lines, as Johnny turned with his jaw dropped, "how come you never told me Dad sent Zwei here?"

Ruby looked down, tapping her fingers together, "well, we were a bit distracted at the time, and then we were called to the auditorium, so..."

Johnny finally closed his jaw before responding, "we're going to need to discuss care rotation when we get back, for now, let's just focus on the mission, as soon as he's done," Johnny gestured towards Oobleck, who still appeared to be spinning in circles with the corgi in his hands. When he finally put the dog down, Blake spoke up, "what are your orders doctor?"

"Ah, yes, straight to the chase, I like it! As you've been informed the south east area has been marked as a recent hotspot for Grimm activity. Now there are several possible explanations for this behaviour, one of which being… Grimm,"

Nathan stared in confusion, "huh?"

Oobleck lowered his voice a bit, "Grimm, a creature of Grimm approximately 100 yards from us at this very moment,"

They all turned around, Weiss voicing her shock first, "what!?"

They all pulled out their weapons, only for Oobleck to tell them, "stop, there are a number of reasons why Grimm congregate in this particular area, the most likely of which being their attraction to negativity, sadness, envy, loneliness, hatred, all qualities that are likely held by our hidden group harboring ill intent,"

Johnny looked down a bit, "_and myself as well,"_ he thought, before his attention was snapped back up by Oobleck continuing to speak, "and now we wait, and track. If the specimen leads us to its pack they may subsequently lead us to our prey,"

Natalie kept her eye on the Grimm as she spoke, "so how long do you think we'll be waiting?"

Oobleck seemed to ponder the question, "it's uncertain, hours, days, weeks, why lone Grimm have even been known to stay isolated from their pack for months- and there's the whole pack,"

Alice nearly jumped, "wait, what!?"

"And now they've seen us,"

Johnny pulled out his blade and formed his helmet and gauntlets, "are you kidding me!?"

"No I am not,"

Ruby piped up, "I take it tracking is out of the question?"

"An accurate assumption yes,"

Yang asked him, "so what's the plan then?"

"Show me what you're capable of,"

Johnny immediately took the spark and rolled with it, "Yang, Alice, Weiss, you three are up with me in front, everyone else keep at range and open fire on them,"

Surprisingly without question they took position as Nathan, Ruby, Natalie, and Blake started shooting. The rounds from Natalie's weapon were taking out the largest swathes as everyone else picked off some stragglers from the groups that survived, until they started getting close. Johnny motioned forward and the melee fighters rushed in to take care of the beowolves left behind. Alice jumped up and slammed her foot down on the ground, creating a sheet of ice that froze the remaining beowolves as the other three moved in, shattering each of the frozen statues and eliminating the group. Natalie laughed, "that's it? I thought there was supposed to be a high concentration of Grimm, not a ragtag pack of beowolves,"

Johnny dropped the blade of his sword down to the ground, "I'm pretty sure that won't be it, stay in formation, and stay on guard. And doc, are you gonna fight or are you gonna be looking for clues of our target?" Johnny seemed to be taking the mission more seriously than before, no jokes, no calming down, he even refused to put his weapon away,

Oobleck didn't seem to notice, "I will be hunting for clues I suppose. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, let's move," the group moved out into the city.

They ran into fight after fight with the Grimm, eventually, their professional huntsman moved around the battlefield, asking what seemed to be random questions. He came around Natalie first, asking, "so why did you wish to become a huntress, as someone completely unknown by the world wouldn't it be easier to disappear into a menial job?"

Natalie relaxed herself for a second, "I want to end the White Fang as it's known today, they've caused harm to too many faunus and humans alike, and the only way I could do that I figured was to become a huntress, get better at fighting,"

Oobleck nodded before moving on.

He went around asking members of Team RWBY the same question, before coming across Nathan, bandaging his forearm, asking him, "why did you want to become a huntsman? You are putting yourself in extreme danger without the possibility of an aura, so why go through this?"

Nathan finished wrapping his arm, "this probably sounds stupid, but it was to prove that I could. Everyone in combat school thought I had no chance in a huntsman academy, they made fun of me for it, and I wanted to prove them wrong,"

Oobleck seemed to zip away before Nathan noticed.

He came across Alice, who just finished off a frozen statue, asking her, "and what about you? Surely the fortune that comes from the family name and fame would be enough to live a comfortable lifestyle without even needing to leave the couch, why come here?"

Alice put her staff away and sighed, "I didn't want to live in obscurity. I was the younger sister who was almost as good as _the _Pyrrha Nikos, but never good enough. I came here so I could get out of my sister's shadow,"

A rush of wind could be felt from Oobleck leaving, Alice continued to fight.

Oobleck came across Johnny, "you struck me as peculiar in a fight, taking this far more serious than everyone else, why are you here to be a huntsman?"

Johnny didn't even turn from the fading corpses of Grimm, "I wanted to kill Grimm-"

"That is what we do, I want to know why,"

"Revenge, I want revenge, I want them all dead,"

"Hm, we shall see how you feel when you graduate then," he rushed off before Johnny could answer.

They had fought the Grimm until evening, everyone grouped back up by a building. Alice immediately asked Johnny, "are you alright?"

Johnny finally opened his mask, revealing a stoic expression unusual for the boy, "yeah, I'm fine, but this place is a hellhole if I've ever seen one,"

Alice frowned, it wasn't the response she expected, she figured he would either be ecstatic at the thought of killing Grimm or showing some emotion at all. But she had no reason not to trust Johnny, he wasn't really a liar.

Oobleck called out to them, "that will have to do for today everyone. It's going to be dark soon," he tossed his bag to Yang, ordering them, "you six, set up camp in that building. Oh, and please do make sure there are no more of those… creatures. Your leaders and I are going to secure the perimeter, Ruby, Johnny, come along," he led the two of them away.

The group of three walked along the streets until they came to the edge of the city, looking out they saw a large group of elephant-looking Grimm. Ruby almost immediately exclaimed, "what is that? It looks awesome!"

Oobleck stared out into the forest, looking towards the pack, "that, my dear girl, is a Grimm,"

Johnny formed his mask to zoom in on the Grimm, "obviously, I'm wondering what type, how thick its armour is, and what its weak points are. I'm also wondering when we're going to have to fight them, and how,"

Oobleck turned to face the siblings, "that won't be necessary, those Grimm aren't concerned with us. Not every Grimm is mindless, or rather not every Grimm is still mindless, you see, the Grimm you see before you are so powerful, so superior to the Grimm you've fought, that they've undoubtedly lived hundreds of years, and in their time between killing humans and attacking our borders they've done one important thing: they've learned. They've learned that when they attack our borders, they're likely to die, and that what we lack in strength, we make up for in will, and that killing one human will only bring more,"

Ruby stared out at them, confused, "then… why are they still so close to the city, what are they doing?"

"Waiting," he turned to leave, the two leaders followed him.

Ruby spoke up as she walked, "hey, Doctor Oobleck? I was wondering…"

Oobleck turned to face them, "wondering why I was interrogating your teammates all day?"

"Actually, I was wondering, why did you want to become a huntsman?"

Oobleck motioned to the rubble, "take a look around, tell me what you see,"

Ruby answered, "lots of old buildings, uh, empty streets…"

Johnny continued, "death, pain, suffering. Unnecessary cruelty as a result of Grimm,"

Oobleck responded, "I see lives that could have been saved. As a huntsman it is my job to protect the people, and although I could do it with traditional weaponry, I believe I can make a much larger impact if I do it with my mind. As a teacher, I can take knowledge, the most powerful weapon of them all, and place it into the hands of every student that passes through my classroom. I look at this wasteland and see lives that could have been saved, but I also see an opportunity, an opportunity to study these ruins and learn from this tragedy, and therefore become stronger. I am a huntsman because there is nothing else in this world I would rather be," they continued back to where the rest of their teams set up camp.

Yang stepped towards their makeshift campfire, "I can't believe we didn't find anything,"

Blake looked up from where she was sitting, "we've always been fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time, I guess we can't always have luck on our side,"

Weiss spoke up, "that's not what I meant,"

Everyone looked towards her in confusion, Blake being vocal, "huh?"

Weiss continued, "earlier, about… upholding a legacy. There's more to it than that,"

Nathan looked on from the wall he was slumped against, "right, I mean, obviously I didn't come here just to stick it to some schoolyard bullies,"

Yang chimed in "yeah, me too, I uh… I don't know,"

Blake joined in, "I don't know either, I know what I want to do, but I figured I'd always take things one step at a time,"

"Well, we know why we're here, right?"

Natalie spoke up, "we hope, but I can't say, I've got nothing more than-" she was interrupted by Doctor Oobleck running into the room, "ah, wonderful! A textbook campfire!"

Ruby rushed up the stairs next, "fire!" she knelt next to it, rubbing her hands together, "so warm…"

Johnny was the next to come up, he passed the fire and walked up to the window, staring out into the empty streets.

Oobleck then announced, "very good, eat your dinners and hurry to bed, we have a lot of ground to cover tomorrow and we'll need you to take turns keeping watch over our temporary abode, any volunteers?"

Johnny spoke up first, "I'll do it," "_anything that keeps me awake as long as possible,"_

Ruby went to get into her sleeping bag, Yang caught her and asked, "hey, did Oobleck ask why you wanted to become a huntress?"

Ruby looked at her sister, confused, "no, he didn't, weird, oh well. Goodnight guys!"

Johnny found a comfortable place near the window to watch for unwanted attacks whilst everyone slept. He was the only who hadn't unrolled his sleeping bag in preparation for the night, he had a preferred way of sleeping out in the field, and he was going to stick to it. Everyone else was in their sleeping bags already, leaving Johnny to his own thoughts, luckily, his brain wasn't feeling like torturing him as bad today. He stared out into the empty abyss that was the night, wondering just what was out there, and when they would find their target. He also wondered just how the people coming up with missions managed to come up with the same hypothesis as they did, but then again, they had the general helping them he assumed. They had come up with a solid order for watch, since they were going to sleep for about eight hours, they had someone on watch every hour, then one person would repeat, since Johnny was the one who went first, he would be the one watching last as well. The person he was supposed to wake up was Ruby, no surprise that she wanted to go next, she always wanted to make sure everyone was safe. An hour passed in no time, Johnny left his perch and woke up Ruby, heading towards the wall. He sat down and leaned back against it, placing his sword so it leaned on his shoulder, he then propped up his opposite leg. He draped his hand over his raised leg and wrapped the other around his sword, leaning his head back and closing his eyes, this was how he felt comfortable, he knew the slightest sound would wake him in this position, and he was ready to fight at any moment. His consciousness soon left him.

"_Johnathan get out of here!" "take the sword! Run as far away as you can, we'll find you later!" "MY EYE!" "are you okay kid?" "hey, it'll be okay," "I'll be back in no time kid," "she's not coming back, ever," "you need to get over it Johnny, you have to be strong for them,"_

Johnny's eyes shot open, he had to clamp his jaw shut not to scream. His eyes darted around the room, he noticed Yang was now on watch, figuring he had gotten about three hours of sleep, he decided to go out to take a walk. Placing his sword on his back, he was about to step down the stairs when he felt a familiar furry presence against his leg. Looking down, he spotted Zwei nuzzling against his leg, licking them a bit. Johnny let out a small chuckle, "you want to come too? Well let's get going then,"

They walked down the stairs and left the building, Zwei immediately ran over to a nearby pole.

Johnny chuckled a bit louder out in the open air, "just needed to take a leak? Alright, once you're done get back upstairs, I'm going for a walk," he walked away. A bark from Zwei drew his attention back, then a pair of voices drew his attention forward, "hey, was that a beowolf?"

"Hell if I know, keep on guard, I'll check it out,"

Johnny grabbed the dog and dashed into a building. He watched through a crack in the wall as a man in an all white uniform walked by. On his back was a symbol, it looked like the one they were all told to look out for by Blake and Natalie, "_looks like the gang is closer than we thought," _Johnny thought, he looked down at Zwei, telling him, "I'll deal with that guy, you go get someone else, quietly,"

Zwei seemed to nod, understanding Johnny's order. Johnny nearly pulled out his sword, but decided against it, opting for a stealthy approach, and stepped out, sneaking up to the White Fang member. He quickly wrapped his arms around the man's throat, holding his windpipe shut, he couldn't scream for help or do anything for that matter. Johnny dragged him into the building and held until he could be sure the man was unconscious. He dropped the body, then made sure he was still alive, whilst Johnny wouldn't have minded killing him on logic alone, his morals wouldn't allow it. It was one of things the two systems disagreed on, but losing his morals to him meant losing what humanity he had out here, he may have been human in the kingdom and the academy, but out in infested areas with Grimm, he became more emotionless, more cruel, it allowed him to survive, he would become a killing machine to live another day, then step into a town or home and act like a rather cheery boy, it was hard to distinguish which one was his actual personality anymore, but none of that mattered right now.

Stepping out of the building, he noted Zwei's tail disappearing into the building the teams had taken refuge in. Walking down the street the man had come from, he came up to an intersection, the four directions streets seemed to trail off in and the broken street lights told him as much. Taking cover at the corner of what appeared to be a ruined office building, he peered around the corner to find a subway entrance being guarded by a single White Fang member, he looked scared out of his wits, for all he knew, his partner went to check for a beowolf and never came back. Johnny waited and watched, until footsteps approached from behind, Johnny turned and drew his weapon in one swift motion, only to be face to face with Ruby. Johnny placed his sword back on his back, "sorry, I thought it was someone else,"

Ruby, who seemed used to these kinds of things, nodded and asked, "why are you out here? Zwei came and woke me up, led me downstairs and outside, and I see you leaned up against a wall out here,"

"I had more nightmares, abruptly woke up, and decided to take a walk and try to clear my head. Next thing I know I found the guys we're looking for here, just around the corner. They seem to be huddled in a subway station,"

A bark from Zwei caught his attention, he looked down at the black and white dog, "you did good, now, can you go and get everyone else? Ruby and I are going to go in,"

Ruby protested, "we need to wait for everyone else first, how do you think we'll take them on ourselves?"

Johnny looked cold again, "we have the element of surprise on our side right now, a group of nine people generally won't have that. We can move in now, do as much as we can ourselves, then join up with the rest of our group when they go in guns blazing,"

Ruby questioned the plan, "how do you know they won't try to get in stealthily as well?"

Johnny actually smiled, "do you really think that Yang and Natalie would even try stealth?"

Ruby conceded, "right, then let's do this,"

Johnny nodded, then peered around the corner again. The man was shaking even more now, aiming his gun out at the street, Johnny knew just how to deal with him. His nerves were worn down, so Johnny knew that he would either turn tail and run at a sign of danger, or head towards it to try and fight or see if he was truly going crazy. Johnny leaned down and picked up a stone, then threw it at a metal pole, the metal clang rang out in the ruins. It had one of the desired effects, to an extreme degree, the man dropped his rifle, and stood still as a wet spot appeared on his pants around the crotch area, then turned and ran into the subway station. Johnny stepped around the corner and laughed, Ruby looked at him, confused, "what's so funny?"

Johnny wiped a tear from his eye, realizing that his cold persona was beyond busted at this point, "the guard pissed himself and ran at the sound of a rock hitting a pole!"

Ruby giggled, "are you serious!? He must have been scared out of his life before then!" before bursting into full on laughter. The pair stood laughing in the middle of an area where it was rare to hear or feel any positivity, they soon calmed down and started moving in on the subway station, as they had planned.

The ground underneath them cracked as they were walking, and before either could react, a sinkhole opened up under them. Johnny immediately stabbed his sword into what appeared to be solid ground and grabbed Ruby's wrist. The solid ground seemed to be breaking under their weight though, Johnny came up with a plan, "Ruby, toss your scythe up! We need to lose some weight or we'll fall in!"

Ruby did as he said, throwing Crescent Rose up to safe ground, Johnny then tried to pull Ruby up to toss her as well, he figured he'd fall down the hole, but that was better than his much younger sister, his extra four years of experience meant a lot out here. His extra pull on his sword to try and lift Ruby caused the piece of pavement it was embedded in to break though, and they fell into the hole. On the way down, Johnny noticed a strange sight, there was an underground building where he expected a rail line. Without questioning the enormous chamber they found themselves in Johnny pushed Ruby towards the building, what he didn't realize was that he was headed towards the building as well. Ruby landed safely on the roof, but Johnny, without realizing what was about to happen, landed spine-first on the edge of the roof, then fell off, he would be lucky to have aura left to land, but that was why his semblance was handy. As he hit the ground he activated his semblance, shattering into glass, "_three uses left,"_ he thought. He reformed on his back, attempting to recover from the pain of hitting the roof like that, only to realize a pink umbrella with a blade sticking out the end was pointed at his neck.

Ruby had landed on the roof thanks to Johnny, but now he was down at the bottom of the cavern, she looked over the edge but could find nothing, she realized the distance was too far and it was too dark for her to even see the bottom from where she was. Hearing the sound of a door opening, she turned to see two White Fang members closing in on her, one of them tried to grab her without warning, she shoved his hand away, "back off creep!"

She then tried to punch him in the stomach, but it had little effect as the man whacked her on the side of the head, knocking her out.

The rest of the group gathered around the sinkhole, Natalie was tempted to jump in. Zwei had come and woke them, leading them to where the leaders once were, only to find a sinkhole and Ruby's weapon a little bit away. Oobleck was talking about something to do with just who they were dealing with and some other information about Mountain Glenn, but Natalie couldn't pay attention, nor could Alice. All they could think about was Johnny and Ruby, hoping they were okay, they felt hands on their shoulders. Turning around, they saw Nathan giving them a sympathetic smile, "we'll find them, don't worry," he then took lead, "we can take the subway entrance over there, the faster we get in, the less danger our teammates will be in. Now isn't the time for a history lesson Doctor,"

Oobleck looked up, almost shocked by Nathan's now assertive tone, "we have a direct entrance right here, we may as well use it,"

Nathan's face started looking cold, calculated, "_thanks for teaching me this one Johnny"_ "no, they'll be expecting more teammates to come through that entrance, I'm sure they already know who is associated with which team. They won't be expecting a frontal assault directly from the subway entrance, and if they've been kidnapped, they're likely closer to the subway than the underground caverns. Those caverns are infested with Grimm, and if they decided to toss our teammates in there… we best not hope that happened,"

Weiss chimed in, trying to lighten up the situation a little bit, "so you finally figured out how to plan ahead Nathan?"

Nathan, catching onto what Weiss was doing, played along, "yep! It only took 18 years!"

It got some loose chuckles from their teammates, but it didn't brighten the mood, they had to settle for a solemn silence as they moved towards the subway entrance.

Johnny was deep down in a cavern, with whom he assumed was a psychopath pointing an umbrella at his neck, and his sword out of reach. He had known sadistic psychos before, he knew the look they got in their eyes when they were ready for a kill, although it was clouded a bit, he saw the same in her eyes, he only hoped he could take advantage of it.

Pulling off a grin, Johnny stated simply, "I wouldn't think you'd want to kill me now right? I mean, this isn't a normal situation for me to be in, I'm not normally this easy to catch. And besides, people like us love to play with their prey, I can see it in your eyes. Why don't we have a little fun first, something to get the blood pumping, then the spray would be much more beautiful, would it not?"

A glint of recognition was in the woman's eye, just what he wanted. She smiled, pulling up her umbrella, then walked over to where Johnny blade was still embedded. He started getting up, stretching out a bit, as long as he was able to play his psychopath persona well, she would have no reason not to take him seriously, but for him, it was just a tactic to stay alive, he knew that in a straight fight he at least had a chance of survival. He never liked emotionally manipulating people, but it happened to be something he was good at, something he learned over time during his old explorations of Vale, going out after hours when the rest of his family was asleep, getting people to let him into bars, at least until he turned 18, then he had an ID. He turned to look at the girl who was struggling to pull the sword out of the pavement it was stuck in, she was an odd sight, extremely short by most standards, about the same height as Ruby even. She wore mostly white clothing, but no sign of a faunus trait or the White Fang insignia, her hair was evenly split down the middle between brown and pink, her umbrella was completely pink, with a pattern seemingly stitched into the end that extended out as an umbrella. There was a switch on the handle, Johnny assumed that opened up the umbrella itself, something to keep in mind. He waited for her to pull his sword out for a minute, amused by her futile attempts to pry the massive slab of metal out of the rock, he decided he'd seen enough and walked over, gently moving her aside and easily pulling the sword out of the rock. He rested the blade on his shoulder and turned towards the girl, who stepped back away from him. Johnny couldn't help but ask, "something wrong?"

Looking at her closely, he saw her eyes were also pink and brown, but also seemed to show fear, Johnny grinned, "what are ya, scared?"

Before the girl could break her continued silence, a growl sounded out behind them. Johnny swung his sword behind him instinctively, catching a beowolf off guard and killing it in one swipe. Johnny then looked around, noticing a large amount of glowing eyes in the darkness, he backed towards the center of the small circle of light, bumping into something when he got there. Turning around, he saw the girl who had now fallen on the ground, backing away from more Grimm on her side. He quickly offered her a hand, which she took without hesitation. Johnny muttered, "fuck, we'll have to work together, I hope you can fight," the girl nodded before turning to the growing horde of Grimm on her side, Johnny turned to face his. He wouldn't be dying here, not with the psychopath who threatened to kill him. If he was going to die he would do it where he could find Alice first, to tell her he loved her, so he would get out of this alive, with the psychopath or without. He thought about abandoning the girl to the horde, leaving her to die while he saved his own skin, but he couldn't live with himself if he did that, killing someone yourself was one thing, but stabbing them in the back and letting someone else kill the bleeding body? It was too much, even for him, he even imagined the girl would be disgusted by the idea, if not for the simple reason that she would want to kill them herself. Judging the size of the horde, and the variation between the different creatures, Johnny deemed this fight would be impossible for just the two of them, there was no way they could fight off that many Grimm, especially when most of them were Ursi, Deathstalkers, and Taitju. Johnny put his sword away, exercising the one strategy that would get them out of this mess. He ran forward, running around in a circle and gaining speed, then activated his semblance, turning himself into a cloud of glass and picking up the girl, taking them towards a smaller tunnel. He dropped the girl and reformed, pulling out his sword and turning it into a shotgun, then loading a black and red shell into it, firing a cocktail of gunpowder and fire dust at the ceiling, blowing up a chunk and blocking the entrance before any Grimm could get in. They couldn't see in the dark tunnel, until Johnny fumbled through his pockets and found his lighter. Pulling it out and flipping it on, he could finally see the girl again. He felt as if he owed an explanation for why he had the lighter, "I used to smoke a bit, you know? There was a time when I was extremely stressed out and had no other way to calm down. I dropped the habit when I couldn't find any more but I kept the lighter on me, good thing huh?"

The girl didn't respond, Johnny asked her, "do you talk, like, at all?"

She shook her head, then she put up a finger as if to tell him to wait a second, materializing a sign from thin air, -my vocal cords were crushed a while ago-

Johnny looked down, "oh, I see. What's your name?"

The girl seemed to grin, the sign changed, -Neo, Neo Politan-

"Heh, that's fitting I guess. Well, we can't fight in here, let's get to some kind of open space," Johnny looked around,

Neo backed off a bit, -I don't think I want to fight you-

Johnny grinned, "what? Why? Didn't you want to kill me?"

Neo's sign changed again, -I know when I don't stand a chance. That sword would snap Hush in half, then what, illusions and fisticuffs? Not my style. Besides, you remind me of someone I know, you both look similar too-

Johnny chuckled, "well you're about the same height as one of my sisters, although I wouldn't think it would be nice to be as short as a 15 year old,"

Neo shrugged, -it's nothing new, although I swear I've seen you before-

Johnny put his chin in his hand, "maybe it was when… shit, you're the new goon Torchwick got!" he drew his sword,

Neo took another step back, glaring at Johnny, -new!? Hardly, we've been working together for years. Look, maybe we can help each other out here? I do _not_ want a fight-

Johnny kept his sword ready, his lighter in the other hand, but he was about to put it out in favour of the night vision in his mask, he told Neo, "if you have a deal you want to make, you'd better make it quick before I put you out of commission!"

Neo's sign changed, -what if I don't attack your team or your sister's team? And I can give you information from our operations, please?-

Johnny put his lighter away, before Neo could run, a brighter light flashed, "hey, get your scroll out. We can exchange numbers now, then we can keep in contact, you have yourself a deal, on one condition,"

Neo almost seemed to cower away a bit, -what is it?-

Johnny grinned, "I want you to help us out in other ways where you can, sabotaging things quietly where you can, taking out key members in secret, the like. Do we have a deal?"

Neo seemed to smile, -yes, we have a deal, it isn't even our operation in the first place. The plan to my knowledge, although I was compelled to not tell anyone, was to overrun Vale with Grimm, and bring down Beacon. For obvious reasons I don't exactly want that to happen, and I don't think Roman would either. You can't do crime if there's no city to do crime, and the officials in Vale are pretty easy to bribe compared to everywhere else, although our compensation was that we'd never have to live via the streets ever again, although I don't exactly know what that's worth right now-

Johnny put his sword away and tossed his scroll to Neo, "do you know who's in charge then?"

Neo quickly typed in her contact information, then edited her sign again whilst tossing her scroll to Johnny, -not exactly, sorry, I'm terrible with names, although the person leading this operation I don't think is the main force, there's someone above her, and their name is burned into my mind. Nero, someone named Nero, no one knows what they look like, not even what they actually sound like, they always have a different voice changer on. Not as useful as you want I bet, but it's something, and I'm going to find out more later-

Johnny typed in his contact information under the name 'Glass Cannon', he got a look at a couple of the contacts, seeing one labeled 'Future Husband' with a picture of herself and Roman. He grinned as he tossed her scroll back, Neo caught it whilst still dealing with putting her contacts in Johnny's scroll, then she tossed his scroll back, checking the contact data, he saw her's labeled under 'Ice Cream'. A message came quickly, -make sure to text me instead of call, I won't be able to get anything done if I can't talk. Also, cute girlfriend-

Johnny nodded, "right, we should get going. I have a plan, and I'm going to need your help for it," he started walking, Neo followed close behind.

Ruby was sitting by a subway train tied up, watching as her captors loaded strange objects onto it. She couldn't get out if she wanted to, in fact she had already tried, it ended in her being tied down so she couldn't move or use her semblance. Being more bored than scared made it so much worse, she wondered what her team was doing, or Johnny's for that matter, she wondered what happened to Johnny himself, she hadn't seen him since he fell off the underground building. As if on cue, a girl exited a side tunnel with a familiar face in tow. She tossed a tied up Johnny by Ruby, his face hitting the ground first. Ruby looked up at the girl, receiving a strange look she didn't expect, an apologetic frown. The girl left the both of them alone by the train. Johnny flipped over and whispered, "all according to plan,"

Ruby whispered to him, "what plan? We're stuck here tied up without our weapons,"

Johnny grinned, "not for long,"

The boy appeared to be fumbling around behind his back, before his arms were freed almost immediately, revealing a pink and brown pocket knife. He motioned for Ruby to turn around. Ruby turned around and Johnny cut the rope binding her arms as well, freeing them both. Johnny walked over to the side entrance the girl came through, reaching around the corner. After a second, he pulled his sword out from behind the wall, stating, "keep your eyes open when you see new faces, and you can find friends living in strange places,"

Ruby looked on in confusion, asking, "so what now? What can we do?"

Johnny turned to Ruby, "we get out of here and reconnect with our teams, then we deal with the train,"

Ruby nodded, following Johnny away. They barely got out of the tunnel when an explosion rang out throughout the cave and a loudspeaker sounded, "finish packing everyone we're leaving now!"

Johnny turned to Ruby, "go meet with the others! I'll get on the train and try to stop it before they get too far!"

Ruby was about to argue, but a train whistle got her to agree to the plan. Johnny ran back to the train, Ruby ran towards the explosions. She saw the group breaking in, a member of the White Fang was sent flying her way, she dodged and continued running towards them. Natalie was the first to notice her, running towards Ruby faster than anyone had seen her before. Natalie quickly wrapped her arms around the girl and picked her up off the ground, nearly shouting, "I'm so glad you're okay!"

Everyone else let them have their moment, eventually Natalie put Ruby back down, letting her explain the situation, "there's a train with a bunch of military equipment on it, it looks like it's set up to go to Vale and they're already leaving. Johnny stayed behind to try and stop it before it got too far away for us to catch up. We have to go!"

Before Ruby could turn and go, Yang stopped her, "missing something?" she nodded to Natalie, who tossed her scythe to the girl, who nodded and started towards the train.

Johnny managed to catch the caboose of the train as it was leaving, now all he had to do was fight his way to the front and hit the brakes. He looked around the car for something he could use to his advantage, only finding graffiti reading, -Tucker did it!- and a strange device in the center of the car. He carefully stepped up to the device and examined it, finding a jumble of wires and electronic parts he could decipher if he had time, but he wasn't the most fortunate of weapon engineers at the moment. He moved on to the next car, finding a man sitting, he immediately tried to radio for assistance, but he was swiftly knocked out by Johnny. Luckily, he didn't have a chance to say anything before losing consciousness, and the response from the other end was hilarious, "Jeffrey! What the hell do you think you're doing!? Stop accidentally pressing the send button you dumbfuck!"

Johnny picked up the radio and threw it outside the train, hopefully breaking it before they decided to actually send someone. He noticed the same strange device in this car as well, he moved on to the next car. He encountered almost no resistance moving up from car to car, almost as if they were ignoring the rear end of the train, something was wrong and he knew it. He managed to come across an open car, with a bed full of mechs, the same model as the one they had fought on the freeway. He slowly made his way around and through them, they weren't his target. The next car caught his attention, while still meant for cargo, the center was far more cleared out, and the devices stopped appearing upon reaching the mech car. He noticed a familiar figure sitting on one of the crates, "Neo! What's going on?"

Neo looked up, taking notice of Johnny and quickly forming a sign, -the train is heading straight for Vale, I think your teams breaking in caused Roman to rush the plan-

Johnny's mouth fell open, "but the tunnel's blocked, what the hell does he plan on doing!?"

Neo's sign changed, -that's the point, he's crashing the thing. I'm sure you've seen the devices on the previous cars, well they're bombs. They blow up the carts, which blow holes in the roof of the tunnel, drawing Grimm into the tunnel, then a crash into Vale makes a massive hole for Grimm to swarm the kingdom. This wasn't supposed to happen for a few months yet!-

Johnny started pacing the car, "fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, how are we supposed to stop this thing?"

-we can't. Once the train starts it can't be stopped. We cut the brakes because if the train happened to stop in the middle of the tunnel we wouldn't be able to pick up enough speed to ram a hole into Vale-

Johnny was about to respond when something exploded and something slammed into the roof of the car, he turned to Neo, "tell both the teams exactly what's going on, I'm going on ahead to figure out another way to stop this thing,"

Neo nodded as Johnny left the car. The roof entrance opened up, and six people dropped down. Neo stood up, pulling Hush out and opening it up, planting the parasol on her shoulder. She held a sign in her other hand, -I assume you're with Johnny?-

The remainders of the two teams found out the plan from Neo, agreeing that they all needed to catch up to Johnny. Yang had dragged Neo along with them, thinking that she'd get to interrogate the girl somewhere else. In the next car wasn't what they expected though. A large man in a White Fang uniform blocked their path, although he already looked like he'd fought through hell.

Weiss handed a dust clip to Blake, "we can deal with this guy, get moving,"

Blake ran ahead with Yang, Alice, Natalie, and Neo in tow, Nathan stayed behind with Weiss. The man picked up a chainsaw off the ground, asking the pair, "do you really think a couple of rich kids can bring me down?"

Nathan shoved his hands in his pockets, "good grief, you may as well surrender now, you look like you fought a dozen battles already, in fact, I think I can beat you with my hands in my pockets,"

The man raised the chainsaw into the air and rushed at Nathan, who swiftly moved out of the way, hands remaining in his pockets. He looked over to Weiss, who appeared to have her weapon ready and asked, "you mind if I take this guy myself? He's already pretty worn out,"

Weiss hesitated, then nodded, backing off and letting Nathan do his work. The man kept swinging violently towards Nathan, but he kept dodging, only resulting in enraging the man even more. He started swinging wider than he needed to, giving Nathan the perfect opening. A purple aura surrounded Darkford, one unfamiliar to anyone but those who knew his semblance, on the next strike that left the chainsaw wielder wide open, he started his assault by letting his stand loose. The purple figure launched the White Fang member into the air, unable to defend himself, the stand then reared back its fist, then started punching, "ORAORAOROAORAOROAORAORAORAOROAORAOROAORAORAORAOROAORAOROAORAORAORAOROAORAOROAORAORAORAOROAORAOROAORAORAORAOROAORAOROAORAORAORAOROAORAOROAORAORAORAOROAORAOROAORAORAORAOROAORAOROAORAORAORAOROAORAOROAORA!"

The fists didn't stop until Nathan was sure his aura was drained, rearing back and sending one last punch, knocking the chainsaw wielder across the car and into the wall, through the door to the next car up.

Yang and her crew rushed up to the next car only to find an unconscious Torchwick by the door to the front car. Johnny stepped out of the front car, stating, "I've got nothing,"

Yang looked on in confusion, "what are you talking about?"

Johnny looked up, noticing Yang, "I haven't found a way to stop the train. Unless you've got some brilliant plan up your sleeve the best we can do is hope for the best and wait. The force of the wheels would snap most of our weapons before they could be slowed down enough, considering our location an explosive in front would cause the train to launch into Vale anyways, cutting off the other cars wouldn't stop the Grimm from getting in the hole caused by the front car. We're just fucked, unless, wait. We have to get back to a mech car!"

Johnny jumped through the top entrance to the car, leaving everyone else in a state of confusion. Until an unconscious White Fang member slammed through the door. Alice snapped out of her daze and immediately went to follow Johnny. Everyone else watched as Nathan and Weiss strolled in the room, Nathan asking, "so where's Johnny?"

Natalie spoke up, "he said something about going back to a mech car and left through the top entrance, couldn't even wait for everyone else to show up,"

Nathan stepped forward, looking up at the roof entrance, then nearly shouted, "that absolute fucking idiot! We're already too close to stop this thing!"

He then jumped up and ran after Johnny as well, everyone else following him.

Alice had caught up to Johnny before he got to a mech car, grabbing his shoulder. Johnny turned around, he finally got to see just how close they were to the end of the tunnel. He looked solemnly down at Alice, "I'm sorry, I figured we had a chance,"

Alice looked up, smiling, "don't be, it's good to hope. Considering this might be the end of the road, I love you,"

Johnny let out a soft smile, "I love you too, but this isn't the end of the road. We can still survive here, and I'm sure everyone else can figure it out too, we'll need an ice shield. I wish we were with everyone else to help them, but right now all we can do is protect ourselves,"

Alice nodded, kneeling down and motioning for Johnny to do the same. She quickly formed a chrysalis of ice. They knelt in wait for the inevitable.

They were about to rush towards Alice and Johnny, but when their ice shield formed, Nathan realized just what was about to happen, "Weiss! Ice cover!"

She nodded and stabbed her rapier into the ground, a thick layer of ice covered the group. They smashed into the end of the tunnel, the sound of crunching metal, shattering ice, and snapping wood filled their ears, it was the last thing they heard before everything went black.

**AN: Guess who's back? With the longest chapter of the volume too. We're almost done with this volume, one chapter and an epilogue left. I can't wait to start with the next volume, I already have a title too, keep a look out for "The Fall(JANN Series)", though I have one question. I've been writing a ton of stories since beginning volume two, and I don't know if I should upload those, or wait until I've done volume three first, so I'm asking you guys, should I do other stories, or volume three of the JANN Series?**


	11. Casualties for the Kingdom

My vision was blurring and fading in and out, what sounded like air raid sirens and a high pitched ring filled my ears, and pain coursed throughout my body. I tried moving, I felt my limbs working, just barely, and with an insane amount of pain. I saw a few people, images blurred too much to recognize. One of them turned around and looked at me, then seemed to shout at another, although I couldn't tell what they said over the sirens and ringing. The two of them rushed over to me, leaning down and grabbing my arms and lifting me up, excruciating pain shot through my body. The ringing started to die down a bit, one of their voices was slightly audible, "sta… m… an!"

The other one shouted, "...iss… do… time!"

The ringing died down a bit more as they placed me sitting upright against what appeared to be a building. One of them ran off, the other stayed and seemed to protect me from other fuzzy black shapes. My vision started clearing up a little bit, a familiar figure was standing in front of me, Weiss was cleaving through Grimm at an astonishing rate, keeping me safe at all cost. One of them looked to be about to catch her off guard. I moved my limbs again, barely being able to stand, only fueled by adrenaline. I summoned as much energy as I could and poured it into getting my stand out. The familiar purple figure was almost a relaxing sight, but there was no time to waste.

Weiss didn't hear the Grimm coming before it was practically on top of her. She turned only to find that it was in the air flying her direction. She closed her eyes and braced for a hit that never came, when she opened her eyes again, she saw a corpse fading with a purple fist through its abdomen, revealing Nathan standing behind it, bleeding heavily and covered in lacerations from the crash, she could even see some of the building behind him through the holes in his body. He grinned, speaking a barely audible, "good thing you're okay."

He then fell forward, Weiss rushed over and caught him, attempting to hold him up, but had to place him down on the ground quicker than she would have liked because of his weight. She flipped his unconscious body over to examine his injuries, the lacerations and holes couldn't all be covered in the bandages he brought, but she would try to close as many injuries with bandages as she could. She was grateful that everyone else was fighting off the Grimm for her while she worked. She eventually ran out of bandages from Nathan's medkit and in a decision she hoped she wouldn't regret, she used her semblance and froze the remaining wounds shut. She turned around to defend Nathan's body from the Grimm.

A group of three students went out to a balcony overlooking Beacon and Vale, when the siren started going off, one of them, Cinder, pulled out her scroll. One dial later she was in a conversation with the operator of their mission, "what is this about? I assume something happened?"

Cinder gritted her teeth, "yes, Roman got a little too antsy and started phase three too early. I wanted permission to move in and help take care of the mess ma'am,"

The voice on the other end chuckled, "go for it, and please, just call me Nero,"

"Thank you, Nero."

JNPR was heading out to the village for their mission early in the morning when they heard the sirens. Jaune quickly got into the airship and changed their direction to the inner city of Vale, and headed towards the danger.

JAN and RWBY were barely holding out against the hordes of Grimm coming from the tunnel. Everyone could only fight for their lives alone, there was no way they could protect the rest of the city as well, but that didn't stop Johnny from trying. He ran around the battlefield, eliminating particularly problematic Grimm and evacuating civilians from the area. He left the smaller, less dangerous Grimm to everyone else though, "_I hope they'll take them out alright," _he thought, then countered, "_of course they'll be alright, they're just as trained as you, if not more,"_

"_But you have more real life experience than them, your older than all of them, remember that,"_

"_They've fought the types of Grimm they're fighting before, the only worrying part is Nathan. I've left Weiss to take care of him, but what if that's not enough? We just have to hold out for backup, and save as many as we can,"_ he rushed to take down a King Taitju. His legs were burning like hell, and his swings were getting weaker, he had been fighting all day and all night, only on three hours of sleep since the beginning of the mission. He was amazed that his body hadn't given out before, but he knew he couldn't fight for much longer. He kept fighting in his weaker state, hoping that everyone else could pick up the slack. He wouldn't rest until backup came around, but at the rate he was going, it wouldn't be his choice. His luck soon ran out, right after slicing the head off of an Ursa Major, his legs finally gave out. He fell to the ground, tried to get up, and collapsed again. Grimm started to descend upon him, he was powerless, just like back then. He wasn't willing to die here, but his legs wouldn't do what he wanted them to, he was forced to watch as the Grimm closed in on him. His luck soon turned up though, as the head of the Grimm nearest to him exploded. An airship flew in, dropping JNPR into the battlefield. Jaune made his way over to the leader of JANN, grabbing him off the ground, and asking, "you can still fight right?"

Johnny looked over, "I mean, I was literally fighting until my legs couldn't move, but if you give me a few minutes, yeah I can keep going. Although with what's coming, I doubt we'll need it. We've got more backup,"

Jaune looked around, there were other airships coming in, carrying teams and some seemed to come directly from an Atlas Destroyer, with soldiers and new robots in them. They watched as the new backup eliminated Grimm at an astonishing rate, Johnny let out a weak smile, "I guess we're saved for now,"

He stepped away from Jaune, heading over to where Nathan's unconscious body was.


	12. Epilogue

Johnny and Weiss had been sitting in Nathan's room in the infirmary for a few days. He had been comatose the entire time, but alive, and likely to wake up soon if what the doctors said was to be believed. Alice and Ruby were determined to get their partners out of the damn room for at least a day, it wasn't necessary for them to be there until he woke up. Alice quietly opened the door to the room. She noticed both Johnny and Weiss sleeping across the room from each other, Weiss was sitting in a chair and Johnny leaned against the wall on the floor. Alice walked over to her partner then shook his shoulder, quietly telling him, "come on, wake up, it's mid-morning,"

His eyes fluttered, "whazzat?"

Alice tried again, "it's time to get up, it's nine in the morning,"

Johnny looked up, "oh, hey Alice, I'll get moving,"

Alice picked him up, surprising him with her strength, "yeah, we're going on a date,"

"Wait what?"

"You haven't been out of this room for four days, you need to get out in town,"

"I… uh… I'm sorry, I was trying to make sure Nathan was going to be okay. Let's get going," Johnny left the room with Alice. He then asked, "hey, what about Weiss?"

Alice softly grinned, "Ruby's coming to get her soon. I found a good place for us while you were watching over Nathan, so let's not try and bring this down,"

Johnny felt a buzz in his pocket, he pulled out his scroll and checked the notifications, seeing one from 'Ice Cream'. He checked the message, -the boss is someone you know. We're going to need to meet to explain-

Johnny tapped Alice on the shoulder, "hey, do you mind if I invite someone else along?"

Alice looked shocked, "what? No! This is supposed to be our date,"

Johnny showed her the scroll, "I have someone on the inside and she wants to meet,"

Alice looked at the message, "shit. Alright, she can come along, pass me your scroll and I'll text her the location,"

Johnny passed her the scroll and she sent a quick message to Neo, then gave it back. Johnny started walking a bit faster, Alice speeding up to keep close, "what's the hurry? We have time on our hands right now,"

Johnny turned around, "not with a traitor in this school. We have to find out who it is, and deal with them as soon as possible, or something bad is going to happen. I'm not letting my friends, sisters, or girlfriend get hurt because I was too slow to the punch, not again,"

Alice's look turned a bit sour, "do you blame yourself for what happened to Nathan?"

"It was my fault, I tried to solve the problem by myself and he got hurt because of it,"

"That wasn't why he got hurt. His wounds were mostly punctures from ice and other materials. It had nothing to do with you,"

"I was too slow, I had the perfect way to stop the train, but I wasn't quick enough to execute on it,"

"Johnny, by the time you left to execute that plan it was already too late in the first place. We should honestly just be grateful he's alive right now, and we have a target to aim at that did this to him technically,"

"Alice, I can spot attempted manipulation from a mile away, street smart, remember?"

"I'm sorry, I just…"

"Don't be, I know you're trying to help. Let's just get going,"

"Yeah,"

They left for their day out.

**AN: And that's the end of the volume. Now, I will give a few days to see if I should upload the new stories or just work on the next volume. I'll see you all later, Raz3r out!**


End file.
